


Drug From the Shores of the Lotus-Eaters

by stillmadaboutpetra



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crushing, Erwin's POV, Funny, Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Unhappy Ending, Unresolved Ending, angsty, college au drabbles from tumblr, funny at first tho, oh bad stuff happens later on btw, uhhh, very sad and serious later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:20:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 29,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2430311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillmadaboutpetra/pseuds/stillmadaboutpetra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin tries not to fall in love with his college roommate. Levi just wants to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are taken from my tumblr stillmadaboutpetra under the tag #college eruri  
> because it has developed into a more genuine au and now has a trajectory, i've decided to put it on ao3 because things are getting longer.

Somewhere in the beginning...  
~~~

Erwin refused to give Levi the thing he wanted most. Levi even begged. “Erwin, please, please, give it to me.”

"I don’t think you deserve it. You didn’t listen to me." Erwin held Levi off, Levi trying to break Erwin’s hold on his wrists. Levi pulled but knew better than try to overpower Erwin.

"I said I was sorry." Levi resorted to pouting. Erwin narrowed his eyes but didn’t budge. "Please, Erwin." Levi licked his lips, mouth watering. Erwin inhaled, considered.  
"I’ve never heard you beg before. Getting a little pathetic."

"I can’t help that I’m a slut for it, god," Levi snapped, the sweet act crumbling under insult.  
Erwin smirked. “I’m sorry, say that a little louder for me. What are you?”

"I," Levi tilted his chin up, fire in his eyes, "am a pizza slut. Give it to me."

Erwin physically held his stoned roommate back from the delicious pizza sitting so innocent and tempting on Erwin’s desk. “I ordered and you promised you’d pick it up and you forgot. Again.”  
Levi whined. Erwin frowned. “They hate me at Pizza Palace now. Hate me because I always come late to get my pizza because you can’t stand phone calls and forget to get the pizza.”

Erwin’s lecturing came to a close when Levi licked his arms “ew salty gross” and Erwin let him go. Levi bolted to the pizza and grabbed two slices, scampering to his bed. The pizza wasn’t even hot anymore because Erwin had gotten it an hour late because someone got too stoned to be useful.  
Levi moaned obscenely. “Stuffed crust.”

~~~

Erwin stared down at his mostly naked roommate passed out in his bed. Levi even snored a little bit from laying on his back. There was an empty box of Tostinos pizza rolls torn open on his computer desk, and Levi’s belly looked pretty full. “I hope to god you at least microwaved them,” Erwin sighed and threw a blanket over Levi.

~~~

"Why do you always get into my bed when you’re stoned?" Erwin asked, trying to pull Levi off his twin extra long - that didn’t comfortably sleep him anyway - so he could return to his book. He got up to pee and returned to this scrawny boney bum in his bed.  
"Cause it smells good. " Levi slapped away Erwin’s hands.

"That’s cause yours smells like a skunk."

"Nu-uh." Levi buried his face into his pillow and went boneless. "scause you smell good."

"Levi?" Had Erwin heard that right?

Levi rolled over, shirt rucked up to expose his firm belly, the jut of his hips. “Okay okay okay. Deal, here, go get me starbursts and I’ll suck your dick.”  
"What?"

"I said go get me some starbursts and I’ll get out of your bed."

Erwin rubbed his face then reached down to grab Levi under the armpits. The kid kicked up a fuss but Erwin threw him into his own bed. “I will get a spray bottle and train you.”

Levi hissed and rolled under his own covers. “Can you get me a cup of pre-ice?” He asked in a soft tone, peeking out of his blankets.

"Fine," Erwin huffed. Pre-ice, what a fucking goofball.

He really should have expected Levi to be in his bed when he got back.

~~~~~

Erwin walked into his small dorm room to a very not good bad sight. “Levi, what are you doing, if you get caught we’ll get fined.”  
Levi looked up from the floor, sat on his little carpet square throw rug. Eyes characteristically red. “Chill. ‘Sides, you’re drunk anyway.”

He flipped a pancake on his very prohibited electric griddle.

~~

Levi, much to Erwin’s confusion, was actually insanely popular as far as first-year students go. He played frisbee which didn’t count as a real sport but opened him up to a bright social sphere. And he was actually a good student and friends with their class president, Petra Ral. In short, Levi had places to go, people to see.

Erwin did not. Instead, he spent the weekends getting ahead in his classes as opposed to going to parties. They didn’t suit him. He couldn’t dance, nor did he want to risk getting busted. That would hinder his goals, having a smear on his record. The subtle reek of marijuana that permeated all soft good in his dorm room thanks to his prima donna roommate currently applying pastel purple lipstick made him nervous enough.

"You can come if you want," Levi reminded him as he pursed and smacked his lips. He gave zero fucks about appearing normal — Erwin wondered what lucky peer would get the imprint of purple lips on their neck tonight.

"I’m good. Thanks though." Pity invitation. Great.

Levi looked at him in the reflection of the mirror, frowned, moved on to lining his top lids with ink black. Because of Levi, Erwin knew that he had warm-toned skin and and should really try out an orange-coral for his lips. Sometimes he wanted to shake Levi; he really did look nice in that purple lipstick though. His teeth looked whiter, he looked sharper all over.

Levi played music and mixed some malibu drink into his water bottle and texted Petra, if Erwin were to guess. The illegal eletric griddle poked out from its hiding spot beneath Levi’s bed.

When Erwin’s phone chimed with a text, he tried not to get too excited - but he immediately imagined someone from class or such inviting him out for a party of his very own, one where Erwin was not a pity invitation but instead a direly needed guest to ensure that a fun night was had.

Levi: u look like a sack of sad potatos. come out with me or ill jack off in ur bed

Erwin looked across the room to where Levi waited, lavender mouth pert with impatience.

"Fine," Erwin conceded. The brief resulting smile that Levi turned away to hide made Erwin consider how second-hand purple might look on his own mouth.


	2. But they aren't married yet

All he wanted was to finish Song of Achilles in peace, but as the story drew closer and closer to its clenching finish, Erwin lost all ability to keep at peace. He woke up earlier than Levi and stole the morning hours in bed, Levi asleep across the room, to finish his book.

Instead, the book finished him. The last two chapters were read through a burning fog of tears and he didn’t even bother getting up for tissues, wiping his face, eyes and nose on the back of his hand.

He thought he was keeping mostly quiet with his crying, but apparently not. “Erwin?” Levi called, hesitant and still sleepy.  
Erwin shoved the book under his covers and hiccuped on a sob, face hot with embarrassment. Levi would never shut up about this. “I’m fine,” he started to say, though he wasn’t, all clogged up with a broken heart for an ancient love. He even knew what would happen and still…

To his great surprise, Levi vaulted out of bed, across the room and joined him at the first crack in his voice. Thankfully, the book remained hidden. Levi gripped his bicep, at first firm then softened to stroke his bare skin, his face wide with worry. “What happened?”

Erwin looked at him, stricken, wanted to laugh because wow. Apologize maybe for worrying Levi, but instead, he could only think of Achilles holding onto a corpse and gave way to a new fit of tear, any explanation lost in bubbling crying. Levi shifted around so he was tall enough on his knees to hold Erwin.

Having no idea what he might say to console Erwin, Levi settled for petting his hair, his shoulders and back and saying, over and over in the softest voice he had “hey. Hey, big guy. Hey.”

Erwin half-laughed into Levi’s chest, but Levi just thought it was another sob and squeezed Erwin tighter. Eventually, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation helped Erwin get ahold of himself. He sniffed one last time and wiped his face on his hand, heard Levi mumble “gross,” and sat back.

Levi was still looking at him with concern. “Are you okay?”

Erwin nodded and gave way to an embarrassed laugh. The sadness of the story felt far away now after all that. Now he was left with embarrassment. “Yeah. Yeah, sorry. It was nothing, Levi.”

Levi’s mouth twitched. “Didn’t look like fucking nothing to me.”

Levi really was worried about Erwin. He deserved an explanation. “It was just….a book.”

"A book?"

"The one I’ve been reading. I finished it," Erwin scratched the back of his head, looked away, "and it was really sad."

"OH MY GOD," Levi cried, shoving Erwin as he got off the bed. "All that sobbing over a book? Fuck, Erwin. I thought someone died."

Erwin’s bottom lip wobbled. “Someone did die.”

A pause. “In the book?”

"Yes."

"OH MY GOD I’M DIVORCING YOU." Levi stomped back to his bed, got in and pulled the covers over himself. Erwin watched with an amused smile.

"I’ll try not to worry you again," Erwin hedged. Levi grunted at him loudly.


	3. a rising problem

Levi was fucking with him. More so than usual. “Do these make my ass look fat?” He asked, twisting around in front of their closet mirror that came with the room furniture.

Erwin held back his sighed and turned from his paper to look Levi over. One massive eyebrow twitched. “Aren’t those Petra’s?”

"Yeah." He was currently modelling Petra’s white denim high waisted booty shorts coupled with a sheer pair of black nylons.

"How are your balls still getting blood circulation?" Erwin thought he successfully dodged Levi’s original question. They didn’t make Levi’s ass look fat, but they did make his legs look tempting - Erwin wanted to rip those nylons with his teeth - and his slender waist could be encircled so easily in his hands. Would the buttons of the shorts make a metallic pop when undone in haste?

"Why don’t you come find out how good my blood circulation is, big boy?"

Erwin blinked from the leer, held Levi’s lancing gaze.

He could reach out, dip his fingers into the band of those shorts. Pull Levi stumbling to him, into his lap. Squeeze the bottom of his cheeks that popped out like overripened fruit from the stark white frayed ends of the shorts. Oh how he’d make Levi stay all tightly stuffed in his pretty tight nylons and little stolen shorts and make him work that cute ass of his off to earn any relief.

Levi’s bare chest puffed out in a breath when Erwin touched his fingertips to the dark hairs tripping down his navel.

A sharp rapping on their door jerked them both away. Levi tore from his stuck-spot in front of the mirror and opened the door, half dressed in women’s clothes and bold about it. Erwin stared at the blinking cursor on his screen, a sentence left half finished.

"I knew you had my shorts," Petra said.

~~~

Erwin had no bigger regret in life than introducing Hanji and Levi to each other.

Hanji said something about their bowels and Levi was won over.

Lunch with them was atrocious. They outdid themselves trying to annoy Erwin, like school boys together, litter mates. Brats.

"This sandwich is so good," Levi started.

"How good?" Hanji asked.

"So good that I want to shove it up my ass," Levi declared. "So my ass can taste it in all it’s glory."

"I wanna shove it up my ass," Hanji said, "so the next person who eats me out can have some too."

"I hope my ass tastes like this sandwich."

"I hate you both," Erwin said. He turned to the prospective student he was showing around campus that day. "Please ignore them. They’re showing off for attention."

Levi leaned across Erwin, planted his hands on Erwin’s thighs like he had no clue, like it was an accident, like he didn’t mean for Erwin to get to smell the warm ginger notes of his cologne.

"It’s true, I want people to pay attention to my ass," he admitted in a dry deadpan, voice almost a threat. Knees on the bench below, ass thrust into the air, hands dangerously assembled in Erwin’s lap.

Hanji did him the favor of smacking his ass and Levi let out a playful yelp. Squeezed Erwin’s thighs. Erwin pushed Levi down into his seat, not gently. “You’re foul.”

Levi went, scratching his nails into the denim grain of Erwin’s jeans.

~~~~

Levi was nearly always gone before Erwin woke, early classes for an early bird. A strange bird. But Levi’s absence was a blessing when Erwin woke up grinding into his mattress, sense and sensibility ruined by the relinquishing grip of arousal.

In a mockery of studiousness, he sat at his desk, back to the room, and thought to make this pleasant. Why not? He had a half hour yet before French 101 even got out, let alone the walk. He’d be done in 10 minutes, tops.

He readied his station - lube, tissues, Lysol wipes. Opened up one of his favorite videos. Just the sight of the video still, a faceless amateur twink spread out, was enough to force his hand to his crotch like some automatic response.

He pulled himself out over the band of his boxers, clicked play. Slicked his hand and sat back to enjoy himself, commentating in his head, watching the familiar scene through drowsy relaxed eyes. The sound of his own hand echoed the clapping sound of the twink’s in the video.

Thighs spread and held up, cotton blue panties stretched between his knees, white thigh high socks. A blushing pale body, face cut off from view, a throat collared in lace. Erwin liked to imagine he had hold on this treasure of a boy - man.

Fuck though, his mind was a swirl of dirty thoughts. The best part of all was the toy sinking in and out of the twink’s waxed smooth hole. A fluffy bunny tail topped dildo that looked, at its base, as wide as Erwin’s wrist.

'There you go, that's it, pull it out, let me see. Yes, so good,' Erwin thought to himself, flushed hot in his cheeks, cock wet and heavy in his hand as he stripped himself, sighed in easy pleasure. He licked his dry lips, groaned, dropped his head back lazily until the twink let out a whining moan. That straightened Erwin up, wanting to see the stretch of skin sucking and tugging on the black silicone and how the twink pet his bunny tail in comfort.

Arms dropped around Erwin’s shoulders — he jerked, let out cry of horror mixed with pleasured pain, hand pinching the head of his cock. Levi’s sharp cackle went off in his ear, those arms squeezed. The moment was too full of shame and outrage for Erwin to process it. Levi darted away, hopped onto his bed. Erwin juggled closing his laptop, putting his still hard dick away. “What the fuck,” he spat, out of breath, heart going so fast he was dizzy.

"That sure is a big banana you got there," Levi teased, bouncing up and down on his bed. 

"Fuck, Levi." Erwin tore off a lysol wipe, refused to look at him. His ears were blister hot. "Why are you back?" It wasn’t ten. 

"Finished my exam early." He wore a wicked grin, but it sat like a cartoonist’s sketch on his face. He was pink too, eyes tense with consideration. "Feminization and an animal tail buttplug, kinkier than I expected. Thought you were still in your heterosexual denial stage."

Erwin ran a lemon-scented hand through his hair, grimace tight on his face. “We’re not talking about it. What the fuck’s wrong with you, huh? Why’d you creep up on me?”

"What else was I supposed to do?" Levi clicked his tongue, stopped bouncing. "Not like it’s nothing I haven’t seen before."  
"You /haven’t/ seen me before - that’s not the point. Not cool."

Levi dropped down onto his bed and stared at Erwin, eyed the set up on the desk, disaffected. “Whatever.” He rolled off the bed, retrieved another textbook that got crammed into his overstuffed bag. “Finish yanking that pet snake of yours by the time I get home later.”

Erwin could have screamed at Levi, at the closed door he left behind, but instead he took a cold shower, mind nearly blank in retrospective shock.


	4. They care of course they care

They didn’t talk about the masturbation incident.

Levi caught Erwin’s wrist as he passed by his bed. It was slightly horrifying considering Erwin thought Levi was napping.

“‘Win,” Levi mumbled, nosing into his pillow and blinking. Erwin forgave Levi for being an obnoxious shit because he was so fucking cute, half asleep and twisting in his blankets.

"Yeah?" He sat on the edge of Levi’s bed. Levi yawned, hair fallen down into his eyes. Erwin….gave up on resisting and pushed his hair out of the way.

"Yknow how I love you?"

Said like that, soft and absolute, shook Erwin at his core. Levi didn’t mean it like that, but still, he sounded so sweet.  
"Yeah?" He repeated, at a loss.

"Kay," Levi closed his eyes. Erwin thought that was it. It wasn’t. "Kayso I can’t let you leave this room wearing a polo tucked into khakis."

Erwin dropped his head, chuckled. “Okay,” he agreed, “what should I wear?”

"Keep khakis, put on that plum tshirt you got. And the vneck gray cardigan."

Erwin ruffled Levi’s hair and moved to change, feeling Levi’s eyes on him as he did.

~~~~

"Levi….Levi….wake up…I need your help….Please Please please. Pizza pizza weed weed….little Debbie…."

/Someone/ was nudging him, trying to wake him up. By saying the stupidest shit too. Only one man…..

"What the fuck do you want, Erwin," Levi said without opening his eyes.

"I need your help." He felt Erwin climb into his goddamn bed. Lay down beside him. Yawn. "I finished my paper. Can you edit it? And fix the citations?"

Levi groaned and turned his face away. Erwin’s breath smelled foul, coffee eroded on his tongue. Disgusting. “Jesus. What time is it?”

"Little after five….it’s due at nine."

Levi dozed off. Got shaken awake again.

"Please? I suck at Chicago and I’m pretty sure I can’t see straight anymore."

Levi opened his eyes slowly. Erwin’s desk lamp remained on. Erwin looked like shit. “Remind me why I should help you.”

Erwin was a desperate man. “I’ll buy you all the munchies food you want for the rest of the semester.”

"Even if that means going to the donut truck at 2am?"

"Anything."

So Levi pushed up, hating Erwin to his core but not really. Erwin gave him a grateful, exhausted smile and promptly rolled into the warm spot Levi vacated and fell asleep. Stupid boy better not drool on his pillow.

The sight did give Levi pause when he looked over his shoulder, halfway through correcting Erwin’s paper. Something about Erwin sound asleep in his bed that made Levi feel like an idiot.

~~~

Erwin’s across campus from his place, just getting out of psych when his mom texts him.

'Hey stud muffin :))) I'll be there in about a minute. Do you know where you want to eat? I hope the bathrooms in your dorm are clean….too much coffee!!! See you soon!'

Fuck.

He’s not sure how he forgot his mom was visiting because he talked to her Sunday, but once the week started it left his mind. Friday crept up fast and he knows his room is a wreck and he won’t be able to let his mom into the building because it takes ten minutes to get home.

He calls Levi. He calls Levi hoping Levi is home and dressed in men’s clothes and that it doesn’t smell like weed and can Levi respect authority?

"Levi!"

"Why are you yelling?"

Erwin speed walks along the sidewalk that meander far too much for his needs. “My mom’s gonna be there soon. Can you just….make sure she can get inside? She has to pee badly and I’m just out of class.”

"Oh. Yep. That it?"

Erwin wants to ask him to be nice, to be appropriate, but he knows it’s rude and presumptuous to do so.

"Yes," he says when it isn’t but it’ll do. He can only ask so much of Levi.

He rushes home, decides he wants French food and guiltily feels relieved that Levi has class in twenty minutes so there’s a nice polite excuse for why he can’t come to lunch with Erwin and his mom.

He opens the door to their room and feels like an ass.

Levi had cleaned the whole room apparently. Made both their beds, did the laundry, it smells like febreeze, his desk has been organized, and his mom is sipping tea in his chair out of one of Levi’s tiny black stonewear cups he’s freakishly proud of.  
Levi is dressed like a normal person and offering his opinion on eateries in town.

Erwin gapes before his mother lets out a: “There you are. Hi sweety.” And he gets to hug his mom and realize he really missed how she smells.

Levi stares until Erwin opens his eyes, having closed them to breathe in his mom’s perfume. He catches Levi’s gaze over his mom’s shoulder and he looks — wanting. Staring with concentrated desire and almost….confusion.

Erwin can’t recall Levi ever talking about his parents.

His mom insists on bringing Levi lunch back. They decide on French. “If they have any fancy pastries…” Levi shrugs.

'Thanks. You're a life saver' he texts Levi from the car. Figures the lack of response comes from Levi being in class. Levi's pinched, longing gaze hovers in his mind and he ends up buying Levi an assortment of buttery croissants.


	5. Levi is a loser

By chance Erwin saw Levi on campus. Levi was awkwardly speed walking, short little legs moving briskly. It was a rare sight, a gift. One that humbled Levi.  
Ah, but a piece of paper went fluttering by Levi and Erwin watched him veer, saw his mouth open to curse - people’s heads turned - and he snatched up the litter. He held it at arms length, walk all the faster now, face especially annoyed. Dork.

~~

"Oh my god, what happened to you?" Hanji asked spectacularly loudly when Levi sat down at their lunch table. Erwin coughed on a bite of Mac and cheese.

Levi’s hair….looked so fucking lame. Parted nearly down the middle. He looked like a bad school photo meme. Or an unfortunate farmer.

Levi scowled and pulled his sweatshirt hood up, sank down into it. Erwin realized he was still in his pajamas. “I woke up late and just got out of an exam. Shut up, shitheads.”

"Dun fergget to milk the caow, herr Elijah," Hanji teased in a bastard Swedish-German accent.

"My name’s already Hebrew enough," Levi spat, dropping his face into his hands.


	6. Stoner Tea Party

Levi said something about baking and “deep space” and vaguely suggested he was throwing a tea party Friday night so Erwin should “put on cute underwear and hang out.”

Erwin wore his bright blue DKNY briefs that supposedly brought out his eyes. He wasn’t sure why he followed Levi’s suggestion. He should really avoid Levi and underwear as related topics.

(Levi had something white and lacy with pink bows that occasionally ended up at the top of his laundry basket.) (Erwin suspected it existed to drive him into sin.)

(God, did he sin.)

So Erwin walked into his room and sure enough a tea party of sorts was in the works. Levi had a water boiler plugged in, his heavy black teapot sat on the carpet in the center of the floor, a circle of those tiny fancy black cups about it. A plate of, apparently, homemade fairy cupcakes frosted white with lemon cream.

Hanji sat slumped against the edge of Erwin’s bedpost, using his pillow as a cushion. It probably smelled like fart now.

Petra sat crisscross beside Levi, tearing the plastic safety seal off pink crystal sprinkles. She dusted them over the cupcakes and smiled at Erwin as he took his seat. Levi was distracted pouring some herby heady tea out, so she flicked the sticky remains from her fingers at Erwin in play.

Levi wouldn’t appreciate the mess, but what he didn’t know…

“What’s the occasion,” he asked. Hanji snorted low in their throat and exchanged a look with Levi that made apprehension roll in Erwin’s gut.

“Good will, friendship, a spontaneous overflow of passion,” Levi rattled, distracted. He avoided looking at Erwin as he passed forth a warm cup to him.

The tea was milky blue-brown, blots of grease shining across the surface. Erwin never felt more suspicious in his life, aside from when he’d asked for a puppy from Santa and received a handwritten apology from Santa about puppies and flying sickness in penmanship remarkably similar to the cursive his mom used in the letter packed into his lunchbox.

He took a sip, Levi watching him intimately. There’s so much cream and sugar mixed into the tea that he can barely find the mint and dull earthy taste beneath.

This seemed to break a tension Levi had been holding and everyone picked up their cups. Many refills and cupcakes later, Erwin made a conclusion.

“This all has pot in it,” he blurted as soon as he knew. As soon as he realized he laughed too easily and that everything felt a little slow and the air too thick and the pink sugar crystals popped as they melted on his tongue and exploded between his teeth.  
Levi looked at him, worry under his lazy expression. “Are you accusing me—”

“Yes.”

Levi leaned across Hanji to rub Erwin’s thigh. Up the inseam, down to his knee. “But you’re having such a good time, huh, big guy, you don’t mind.”

Erwin knew what Levi had done was wrong, and he’d be mad later, but right now he didn’t mind. So he nodded and drug Levi across Hanji’s lap and into his own. Swaddled a surprisingly docile Levi in the blanket he’d been using. “You’re bad,” Erwin scolded with a pout.

“It gives you an out,” Levi shrugged. Hanji whined for attention, but Petra took them up in her lap quickly and their idle chatter resumed all around.

~~

Erwin turned out to be exceptionally lazy when high, and thus he hadn’t made any attempt at getting off the floor even after Petra had gone out with friends. In his defense, so apparently was Levi. Actually, that wasn’t quite true because Levi usually got high and cleaned with a particular propensity for doing the laundry. but in this case, Levi was still sitting between Erwin’s legs, the blanket spread out over both of them now. He used Erwin’s chest as a pillow, head just slightly cradled on Erwin’s shoulder, brow bone warm where it connected against Erwin’s neck.

Surely somewhere there were rules about such things between roommates. That one shouldn’t leave an idle hand on the other’s knee, index finger drawing sensitive circles round and round the cap, nail causing just a touch of friction on denim to make the skin below buzz. 

Levi had a propensity for rule breaking too. And Erwin often let him.

"That really was wrong of you," Erwin murmured, finally voicing his thoughts. "Doping me."

Levi hummed; it sounded fuzzy, so near to Erwin’s chest. “Yeah. Probably.”

"Definitely. Don’t do it again."

"But you’re so chilled out," Levi defended. "Not even really mad. You needed it. Your asshole is so tight, probably can’t even get out a watery shit."

Erwin grimaced. “I did not need to unknowingly ingest god knows how much marijuana, nor are my shits watery.” He paused, disbelieving that he’d actually just described feces as watery willingly in a conversation - the shit Levi did to him - before he repeated. “Don’t do it again.”

He wondered if he should dislodge Levi from his spot, if holding him around the middle contradicted his every word. This shouldn’t be between roommates either, not them. 

Levi blew out a breath and sat forward - the panic that he would leave was dull, but it was there. Levi barely let Erwin’s heart suffer a moment before he was back, snuggling anew into the blanket, hand holding a fresh cup of tea. Too expensive to waste. Levi never wasted. “Yeah yeah, won’t. Was mostly for Hanji anyway, truth be told.”

They both turned their head to look up at Erwin’s bed where they saw just parts of Hanji amongst a mess of blankets. A curled hand, their discarded glasses. 

"I found them sleeping on a couch in the library basement this morning when I went to print a paper," Levi said, teeth clicking a little on the rim of his cup. "Kid’s gonna burn out."

Erwin wasn’t sure Hanji could burn out. They had something eternal in their movements, a frenzied energy. That could just be the reported eight cups of coffee a day.

"Maybe get a kidney stone," he mused.

Levi stiffened a little, hair tickling at Erwin’s neck. “Just thinking about pissing one of those out makes me cringe.”  
Erwin attempted not to think on it. 

Levi chuckled after a moment. Erwin jostled him in curiosity. “What?” he questioned.

"Just thinking," Levi said. Erwin took his half empty tea cup from him and finished it, pulled Levi closer with the arm around his middle. When had he replaced it? Must have been right after Levi returned. Returned as if this was his rightful spot. 

"Hypocrite," Levi hissed under his breath, taking the cup away and putting it off to the side. His drew circles on Erwin’s kneecap that tickled. 

"What were you thinking about?" Erwin prompted again.

"Your big dick."

Erwin sighed heavily. “Really?”

"Constantly."

A blush washed over him like a tide. “You don’t really,” he insisted. Levi responded with a confirming silence. “Levi…”

"I for one thought the whole thing was pretty funny. I’m glad you had Lysol wipes on hand. I approve."

Erwin buried his face into Levi’s hair. “I have to share a bed with you tonight.” He had a heart, no way would he kick Hanji out of his bed.

Levi snorted and squeezed at a sensitive part of Erwin’s leg that made him jolt. Huff and pinch Levi’s side in retribution. Levi squeaked and elbowed him. Erwin wrapped both arms around him and trapped him in the blanket. He could wrap his arms around Levi twice nearly, slight even if he was firm. Erwin squeezed until Levi grunted, head falling back on his shoulder.

"Fuck, Erwin, no chill," he heaved, trying to flex and fight his way out but Erwin had him trapped to easily. Small animals in big hands. Levi smelled like wet wood, deep, something dark and green and vital ingrained in him. Erwin closed his eyes and eased his grip, letting Levi breath in and fill up the space freed around him. Erwin breathed in the nature of Levi, the ink of his hair. 

"Don’t know my own strength," he murmured apologetically, lips against Levi’s ear, lazy with the potency of Levi’s concoctions, his sweets. Levi made sugar melt on his tongue like a revelation. 

A single word punched out of Levi in a half realized undertone: “Fuck.” More the impression of a curse, knocking against his teeth in its miscarriage. Painted in the tremble of a breath. Erwin heard it, heard his own lungs let go. The wet of his breath dewing the fine hairs that clung to the pink shell of Levi’s ear. 

All of a sudden, his arms around Levi blazed from the contact. The way he could feel the inside of his forearms resting on the sharp corners of Levi’s hipbones hurt. Levi must have felt the same because he stumbled up out of his spot between Erwin’s legs, blanket treacherous at his feet. 

"I have to clean this up," Levi announced, scrubbing a hand back through his hair. "And make sure Petra and the girls have someone to walk them home."

Erwin pulled his legs up to his chest, then pulled himself together. Pulled up, in, away. Levi made trips back and forth from the bathroom sink to the bedroom in a swift flurry, rinsing and putting his things away. 

"I’ll just go to sleep awhile, if you’re going out," Erwin said to Levi’s departing back. 

"Yeah. I might be out late."

Erwin pulled sweatpants on over his bright blue underwear that no one ever saw to say they brought out his eyes.


	7. The one from Levi's POV

Friday is a complete fucking mess, and somehow it ends with Erwin chasing after him in barefeet down the street in November a few minutes before midnight. 

One moment Levi’s making falafel with Petra in Petra’s kitchenette and the next, Petra’s kissing him. It’s sweet, her hand on his arm and she goes up on her tip-toes even though they’re basically the same height just about anyway. For one too-long second, Levi thinks he could so this. But it’s Petra, and he could never half-ass her on anything.

"Kid," he says, jerking back. "No."

It’s the wrong words, it’s the wrong tone. Petra handles it as gracefully as possible but she won’t look at him again and Levi does the dishes as fast as possible and leaves her with two dozen round falafels.

Levi thinks it’s unlikely that they’ll coordinate outfits tonight for partying. The blunt they were gonna smoke is in his pocket, so he lights up on the way home. He wishes he could eat smoke. His hands probably smell like curry. By the time he gets back to his dorm, he doesn’t feel right in his own skin. If he tried to dance, he thinks it’d fall off of him. 

Erwin’s got some weird spidey sense about his moods and knows right away he’s off. Maybe he wears it on himself. Maybe his skin is thin and clear and about to fall off. 

"Hey, what’s up?" Erwin says, voice not quite wrapping Levi up in a hug, not that gentle yet, but Erwin has a way of filling a room with whatever feeling he has and Levi can tell that something on his face is making Erwin concerned and for all he tries he can’t remember being this easy to fucking read.

Levi dumps his bag, taken over by a shock of dizziness that leaves him standing fixed and trying to get his head. “How hard is it to just be friends?” he asks.

The buzz in his ear covers up the sound of Erwin putting his pen down, closing his book over it. When he looks, Erwin is turned in his desk chair towards him. Something about the lighting reminds Levi of these gourmet coconut cupcakes in the window of the bakery downtown, the blue frosting. Then his brain turns into Coleridge and Erwin is a thin-blue flame in the low-burnt fire of his heart. Levi laughs.

Erwin gets up and leaves. Levi pulls his pants off and crawls into bed, the sheets cold on his thighs. Erwin comes back and gives him a tall glass of cold water. 

"Bad high?" Erwin asks while Levi holds the cup in two hands and sips. He nods. Shakes his head no. 

"Weed’s fine, it’s the stuff I’ve had. Just…shit, you know. Just some shit."

Erwin nods like he understands. “Did you and Petra have dinner? Are you going out tonight?”

"We…no. I didn’t eat. I came here." Had it been a long walk? It was sort of a long walk. Petra had the really nice honor’s housing across campus. Erwin and Levi both qualified, but it was more expensive than regular housing so Levi opted out, and Erwin didn’t want to feel "isolated from the campus community" or some shit like that. 

Erwin gives him a Cliff bar and refills his water. Maybe touches Levi’s hair and convinces him to take off his sweatshirt ahead of time because it gets too hot whenever he sleeps and they both know that so Levi takes it off and Erwin folds it for him and puts it on his chair and Erwin sure is nice. 

"I was going to go out-"

"Go. I’m fine."

So Erwin goes after some reassurances and Levi uses the privacy to jack off to that same fucking porn video that Erwin had been jacking off to that time he walked into the room. The fantasy is a mess, a mix of Levi looking at that fucking twink and thinking it’s himself and Erwin’s the one jacking off to him, them, and Erwin’s cock in his hand. 

He falls asleep, he wakes up. He has a few texts. Erwin’s is the most recent, so Levi ignores Petra and feels like a twat.  
'Doing okay?' 'Pomegrant vodka !!' 'wanna come here?' It's a half hour old at the most recent.

'I'll shower and see'

So he does. And Erwin’s sent him like five more texts in that ten minute time, so he’s definitely drunk. That’s thrilling enough to coax Levi out of his burst of isolation. The place is an apartment, upperclassmen Erwin knows from MUN or something like that. Solving the world’s problems one mixed drink at a time.

Someone who isn’t Erwin lets him in and doesn’t ask for his name and Levi gets a mug of straight vodka. Erwin’s on a couch, alcohol flushed, laughing and talking sandwiched between a chick and a dude and his arm is around the chick and the dude’s arm is around Erwin.

"Levi! Why didn’t you text me when you got close?" 

"Forgot." He raises his mug to Erwin who grins but quickly gets wrapped back up in the conversation. It’s about eight people in the living room and Levi’s in some uncomfortable as dick chair barely sipping his drink because fuck him if he likes a mixer. Erwin takes a shot of fireball. There’s some cheap deco art on the wall that quietly pisses Levi off. Five minutes pass. Levi doesn’t know anyone, but he’s seen the one girl around. Too bad Hanji isn’t here.

His phone vibrates. ‘sorry’ the texts says, from none other than Erwin. Levi looks at him and Erwin looks back then looks to his phone. ‘you can leave’ ‘sorry’

'Is there any sprite?' Levi texts back. 

'There was. no more'

Great. He nods to Erwin, puts his mostly untouched cup down and makes a subtle escape. It’s cold outside and he has his sweatshirt that Erwin helped him take off and folded. He thinks no one noticed his exit aside from Erwin. But Erwin noticing is too much for him. Since when did he get pity invites? What the fuck. 

The sound of feet slapping against sidewalk rose up. Levi turned, tense for a fight, but it was just Erwin in his barefeet jogging after him. Erwin stops short, has to grab ahold of Levi to balance his weight, too tall and cumbersome and dumb-drunk to fucking being running and stopping like that.

"I’m sorry," he says, not out of breath but big moon eyed in the street-lamp dark. "That was weird."

"It’s fine. It happens. Go back to your friends."

"I didn’t want you to be alone." He’s still holding onto Levi’s shoulders, rubbing his thumbs over Levi’s collarbone, starring down like he was so fucking upset he hadn’t made Levi’s night better. He could smell like curry but he doesn’t, he smells like pomegranate vodka. It could be sweet. 

"I’m good at alone. I jacked off, it was awesome."

Erwin laughs a little and rocks Levi forward and back. “Do you want to come back?”

"No. Go to your friends. It’s a fucking miracle you’re out having fun." Levi buttons up and pushes Erwin’s hands away, turns him around and walks him back to the apartment a few steps. "And wear some shoes, fuckhead. It’s cold."

"You should make hot chocolate when you get home." 

"Kay. Come on, back to the party." Levi walks Erwin the whole way back to the apartment, which is only half a block away not even, but Erwin wraps an arm around Levi so it’s all okay. 

"Are you sure you’re okay?" Erwin asks one last time. 

Levi hums, gets Erwin to the doorstep. When it opens, Levi smacks Erwin’s ass, hard, and jogs away laughing when he doesn't feel like laughing but he wants Erwin to enjoy himself for once.


	8. It's Obvious now isn't it

The way the key jammed into the door, rattling and jostling like brass leaves shaken in the wind perked Erwin into an alert state. The way Levi threw himself through the doorway, closed the door, out of breath had Erwin upright from his slouch in bed. 

"What’s wrong?" he asked firmly, heartbeat picking up in sympathy. Levi was flushed from the cold, out of breath.  
"Shit," he swore, looking around the room. He wasn’t red-eyed but he seemed struck by acute paranoia.

"Levi," Erwin said, all worry. Levi slid open their closet, tense, then shook his head.

"Shit," he repeated, more in relief. He laughed nervously, brief, bowed to check under their beds. "Fucking watched scary movies and I’m so fucking jumpy."

"You’re scared?"

"I’m not scared, just like. Amped,” he defended, getting his laptop from his desk and crawling into bed like a little slug. Erwin snorted. Amped. Sure, Levi.  
….  
The buzzing of his phone woke Erwin up. It wouldn’t stop. He only had his alarm turned on, all else set to vibrate. He went to silence it when he saw that it was Levi. Levi who should be asleep in bed in the same room as him. 

"Levi?" he called, groggy, confused. Worried again. Had he snuck out?

"Are you awake?" Levi answered.

"Unfortunately. I have…ten missed messages from you." The light of his phone hurt his eyes, and when he looked up from it, the room was pitch except for Levi’s face illuminated by his own phone.

"I need you to come to the bathroom with me."

Erwin closed his eyes, breathed in. “Why? You sick?” He knew exactly where this was going.

"Just come with me," Levi demanded. In the dark, Erwin smiled. He could do without being woken up at 1am but also this was adorable. He got out of bed with a creak, leaving behind the warm cocoon of his blankets and went to Levi’s bed. Levi, he saw in the blue-white light of his phone, darted his eyes from Erwin to every shadowy corner and prospective nook where a monster might hide. 

Erwin yawned. “C’mon.” And then Levi followed him to the bathroom. The hallway was lit, though the toplights were dimmed on a timer. The bathroom was all ugly flourescents and cold cheap tiles, frigid on Erwin’s bare feet. Levi’s rubber shower flipflops slapped dully. Erwin pissed too, a urinal separating him and Levi’s urinals. Keeping his eyes open hurt. 

Beside him, Levi had one fixed dead on in the mirror above the sinks, eyes wide and suspicious. When they moved to wash their hands, Levi refused to look away from his reflection. Erwin bit his lip, unnoticed. 

The room was dark when they returned, as they’d left it. Levi froze inside, Erwin knocking into his back. 

He knew what Levi wanted to do. He wanted to turn on the lights and oust all the monsters, check beneath the bed and in the closet. Erwin licked his lips, hesitating, before he reached a hand out on either side of Levi and jabbed his fingers into his sides.  
Levi fucking screamed. He must have jumped a foot in the air before he started cursing Erwin out. 

“You son of a bitch, Fuck, Erwin, Fuck you, gonna give me a fucking heart attack.” Erwin laughed his way back to his bed, finding the mattress just the slightest bit still warm.

He gave it a few minutes before he rolled over in his side to face Levi. Levi was on his phone again. “You still scared?”

“I’m not —,” he cut off with a groan and flopped around, rustling loudly. “I can’t sleep.”

Erwin held the thought back as long as he could but that wasn’t as long as he should. “Do you wanna sleep over here with me?”  
He could feign exhaustion or just plain concern. It had nothing to do with wanting to hold Levi around his middle or getting to smell how good he smelled as he fell asleep.

“You come here,” Levi eventually agreed. “And bring your own pillow.”

That was all too easy to comply with. Erwin snatched up his pillow and made his way bravely across the room.

“Swear to God Erwin if you poke me again I’ll feed your balls to slenderman.” Threat issued, Levi made room on the bed. Erwin filled it up and then some.

“I’ll feed you to him first.” He saved them both the awkwardness by throwing an arm around Levi and spooning him. Erwin adjusted himself accordingly, did not press his hips against Levi — not that it’d matter because Levi’s ass was more in line with his stomach anyway.

After a minute of butt-clenching stiffness, Levi shifted his head and rubbed his feet back against Erwin’s legs and relaxed.

“You have to protect me from the monsters.”

Erwin took his toll with the smell of Levi, rich in his hair. “You have my word.”

~~~~

"W-what — where are you going like /that?/" Erwin stuttered. It was not one of his subtler , smoother moments.

Levi cast him a look askance, fine dark eyebrow crooked on a judgemental axis.

“Out,” he answered, the vagueness imbued with a coquettish lilt. Levi shoved his slim wallet into the deep elastic pocket of his very skinny pants and flicked away an errant curl from his eyes.

Curl. Curls. He had curled his hair. Ringlets in distress fluffed and styled about his head, softening his entire look. Dark liner and lashes and a pretty painted up mouth. Too much. Levi was too much in a chunky sweater that swallowed him down nearly to his knees, announcing to everyone that Levi was good enough to eat. The collar of a flannel button up cinched the slender column of his throat.

Erwin swallowed, jaw clenched.

"Where?" He asked, though he wanted to know more with whom. Whom had Levi dolled himself up for so….so obscenely. Obscene in the sheer disruptive nature of his appearance. Erwin who saw Levi everyday hungered to take him by the chin and examine every angle of his face, witness the catch of light in the pale wells beneath his kohl eyes.

"Gonna go to the bakery and be admired by strangers." His mouth, all deep reds - stirring innate carnal reds - caught up at the corners. "Wanna come?"

That’s how Erwin ended up at a table in a bakery sitting across from Levi, watching Levi stir whirlpools of cream in his tea. They’d brought their backpacks, novels and laptops to let them pretend this had some purpose.

Levi cradled his jaw in his hand and looked down his nose at a book, fingers of one hand spreading the pages flat, the other circling rhythmically around the white rim of his mug. Erwin took as long as possible to eat his scone, savoring every minute of silent admiration.

Levi would glance up from time to time and smile at him and look down again with a slow curtain-close of heavy lashes, for all the world content under Erwin’s gaze.

Oh.

Erwin ran his fingers over a napkin, scattering granuals of sugar like so many stars, a flash of genesis.

“Levi…”

Levi looked up. Erwin gripped his knee beneath the table, tightened his hand to steady the world.

“I’m going to get a coffee. Can I get you anything while I’m up?”

Levi blinked twice before he answered. “If you’d like,” he consented, eyes dropping back down. Again he left Erwin without enough. He lived to deprive Erwin.

Erwin asked the cashier quietly what would go well with a London Fog. He brought back an almond biscotti. The plate clinked in the table. Erwin lingered. Levi dog-eared his page and closed his book.

“Thanks, Erwin, you’re so intuitive.”

He licked the pad of his index finger and pressed down on a crumble of chocolate. Was his skin warm enough to melt it?  
The tip of Levi’s finger disappeared into the round rose bud of Levi’s lips. Erwin held his breath. It popped free, spit glistening in the bed of his nail. Light lanced in through the bakery window to pierce Erwin’s chest and free his lungs open.

“I’ve lived with you long enough to know what you like.”

Levi narrowed his eyes. “Do you?”

He thought of Aurora in a prison of thorns, took a step back from Levi before he moved to his seat. He sipped his fresh coffee. “I’d like to think so.”

"You’d like to think so," Levi repeated tonelessly before snaking a hand across the table to liberate Erwin’s coffee from his hands. Levi took a sip and returned it marred by the red imprint of his lips. "SWAK."

Erwin considered licking the stain away, tongue rolling over the print of Levi’s mouth. He poured thick cream from Levi’s saucer over into his coffee instead, feigning poise. He assumed “swak” was the latest insult in Levi’s bizarre lexicon.


	9. Preamble

Voices talking in the room. The door opened and closed a few times, the sound of luggage. Levi leaving early in the morning for winter break.

Someone hushed another.

"You didn’t tell me he was hot." A girl. Isabel.

"He’s gay and a poop," that was Levi. Ah, talking about him it seemed. Erwin fought a smile off his face. Someone squeaked, whined out a "hey."

"Don’t creep on him. I gotta piss." 

The door open and shut. A sigh. Levi’s bed squeaking. “How has he not torn his hair out living here,” Isabel asked. “It’s so tiny.”

"It’s clean. Not like our place is any bigger," a man said. That would be Farlan. "He said he likes it here. Or rather that he doesn’t dislike it."

Erwin should probably say something, but he was in a half-sleep, warm and heavy. And he’d rather listen to Levi’s friends from home. How late had he and Levi stayed up? Studying for his psych final had turned into them talking late into the night, something that was happening with more frequency. They piled into Levi’s bed and Levi had shook against his body with laughter, freed in the dark, loose and strung over Erwin in a mess of limbs and blankets and asking in a persistent needle about his winter break plans.

“Yeah but he didn’t get counseling like he said he would.”

"Course not," the Farlan spat, voice a little too loud. He tempered it immediately, and Erwin held still, made himself breathe evenly though he strained not to snap awake. "He’s always fine. Fucking idiot," tired fondness, worry, "you’d think you’d want therapy after—"

The door opened. “Fucking hand dryers don’t work for shit,” Levi said.

"Think about all the trees you save," Farlan said, nothing from earlier in his voice. 

"Yeah…right. Alright, let’s go."

Shuffling clopping feet. The door closed. Silence. Erwin sighed, opened his eyes. Levi was starring down at him, eyes cool, a smirk almost there. Erwin jolted, shocked.

"Knew you were awake," Levi said. "Sorry that we woke you up."

Erwin wiped his face, his eyes and mouth. “No, it’s fine.” He yawned hugely, jaw cracking.

"Mhmm. Go back to sleep. Do not try to cram for your final." Levi hovered at the bedside, face level with Erwin’s when Erwin sat up, blankets pooled around his lap. 

"I’m going to enjoy a month away from your nagging," Erwin joked. Levi rolled his eyes and crossed his arms tightly, put out. He’d stayed behind, not to confirm that Erwin was awake but to…"I’ll miss you," Erwin volunteered.

Levi looked away then to him, bottom lip pushing up his top one, pout tight. “Fucking liar.” 

Erwin tsked and reached out to draw Levi one step closer to the bed, to draw him into the circle of his sleep-hot body. Levi nudged his face at Erwin’s neck but didn’t uncross his arms, bent and compact in Erwin’s embrace.

"Say you’ll miss me."

"I’ll miss you," Levi mumbled. Erwin rubbed down his spine. He hoped he wouldn't miss Levi because he wasn’t sure what that would mean for when he got to see him again.

Erwin let him straighten up and frowned at him. “You called me gay and a poop in front of your friends.”

Levi’s mouth curled up. “I have to go.”

Erwin squeezed Levi’s arms before releasing him from contact entirely. Levi’s bed had been stripped of its sheets, empty and unsettling. Erwin dropped back onto his pillows with a sigh, eyes feeling grainy. A few hours to go before he could get the hell out of here and get his head on straight.

~~~~

Levi spooned a half melted marshmallow from his hot chocolate and offered it to an accepting Erwin. The metal was pleasantly warm on his tongue. The sugar dissolved. 

“This resort’s kind of romantic,” Levi noted, naked legs thrown across Erwin’s lap. “Snow, fireplace. You.”

He sat up and straddled Erwin, hardness pressing against Erwin from beneath his skirt. His kiss tasted like cocoa. Levi melted on his tongue.

"If only it weren’t a dream’" Erwin said, stroking Levi’s pale cheek.

"A dream?" Levi looked like a baby bird dropped to the ground, gravity stricken.

"Yes…you’re wearing a tartan skirt. You said you’d rather die than wear tartan."

Levi looked down at himself. “You do love me,” he said.

Erwin woke up. He rolled over, sweat on his neck, and wished he wasn’t sharing a room with his mother. Thankfully at least, they had separate beds.


	10. winter break pt 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw for sexual assault, drug use, violence.
> 
> If you want to pretend everything is cute and happy, do not read on at this point. The fic takes a dramatic turn.

Erwin and his mother joined Mike and Nanaba’s families in Vermont for their yearly ski trip. They enjoyed themselves in the remote white-powder wilderness. Sarah Smith hadn’t lost her edge to widowhood nor the creep of age. Erwin and she raced each other, bold twin hearts born from the spring of all things. The resort was an escape from reality, and reality crashed down when they reach the summit and rejoin phone service. 

Erwin’s phone screamed about missed messages, far too many. Calls and texts from Hanji and Petra over and over and over again. From unknown numbers, from his college. A distinct absence of Levi. Text messages beeped in as they trickled down from on-high satellites. 

'have you talked to levi'  
'what's happening to levi'  
'erwin call me i dont know what to do'  
'has levi talked to u'  
'do u know what going on'  
'Did you know about levi's dad?? holy shit?'  
'where the fuck are you ERWIN CALL ME'  
'did the counselors call you?'  
'Please call me'.

Panic set in on him. “Something happened to Levi,” he said to his mother who drove down the narrow town road leaving the town at the base of the resort. 

"Is he okay?" She was appropriately concerned, perhaps more so by Erwin’s stricken face. Erwin couldn’t say, and that terrified him. He dialed Levi’s number and listens to it ring and ring and ring and cut to an automated voicemail.

"Levi, it’s Erwin. I don’t know what’s happening but call me." He forgot that Levi didn’t check his voicemail, but his name on the missed call list had always been enough.

He called Petra.

"Erwin! Where have you been, I’ve been calling you for days."

"Petra. I didn’t have cell service. What’s happening, what’s happened to Levi. Is he okay?" He tried not to sound too frantic because she certainly did, still edged by something he’d missed.

That she didn’t answer immediately strangled the breath from his lungs. “He’s okay,” she said, hesitant. “He isn’t — god, he isn’t dead. Erwin. Erwin, he killed someone,” she sobbed, the news old but still harrowing.

It was so outlandish, so preposterous that Erwin laughed. “What?”

Petra took a deep breath, went very silent, then spoke. “I don’t really know much, I haven’t talked to him myself. He won’t answer anyone’s calls. But it was on the news. He and his friends, they were hiking and ran into these men. The article said it was self defense. Levi and Izzy and Farlan met these men and got into a fight and Levi killed two of them. He shot them. And - and did you know his father was a killer? That cop killer a few years ago? It came out after the first news break.”

Erwin couldn’t make it real. Petra’s words were a fantasy. He could hardly put together that Levi, Levi, had killed someone. Two people. That he shot them dead. Erwin imagined him with lilac lips and bloody hands. Levi couldn’t stand blood.

"No, I didn’t know. He never talked about his parents," Erwin said in a too controlled voice, thoughts distant. Self-defense. "He isn’t hurt?"

"No. I don’t know. I told you, I haven’t talked to him. But the news report said nothing of him being injured."

Sarah drove tight-knuckled, looking from the unmarked road to her son.

Nine hours later, Erwin drove his own car through Levi’s hometown streets. He called him. “I know you don’t check our voicemail often but I bet you’ve been checking it lately. You should know I’m about twenty minutes from your listed address on our roommate form.” 

Levi did not call back. Erwin texted him. ‘I’m at the coffeeshop two streets down from your apartment.’

Levi did love to text.

'what'

That’s it, that’s what Levi responded to him with. Erwin could kill him. The thought made his stomach hurl. He called him again. Levi mercifully answered.

"What the fuck are you doing, Erwin," Levi asked, sounding worn out and thin. 

"Being worried." His heart beat all the way up in his throat. "Levi. Levi, God. Let me see you. Please, talk to me.”

"I — Erwin." He sounded so small and ruined. "There’s news trucks outside my apartment. I can’t leave without dealing with that shit." Hounds after fresh blood. Erwin read the article on the drive home. It lacked everything he needed to know. Skeletal, jarring. It couldn’t take shape in his mind. 

_'…fired on Lobov and Thicke once each after attempted assault…'_

“I’ll bring you a sandwich and coffee. Just buzz me in.”

News crews tried to gain entrance alongside him into Levi’s apartment complex. Thankfully, the door faced the corner of the street and the landing step was small and triangular and easy to defend. 

Erwin thought he heard one anchorman call his name, recognize him. They must have pillaged Levi’s facebook profile before Levi could delete it. 

He knocked firmly. “It’s me,” braced his arm against the door, prepared to block Levi from sight though the narrow hallway was deserted aside from him. Bolts slid out of place and Erwin leaned away as the door cracked open.

He had never been to Levi’s apartment and wished it hadn’t imprinted in his mind as this: Levi drowned in a sweatshirt, his right cheek a dull dead-blood purple. 

"Hey, thanks," Levi said with a little bob of his head, immediately relieving Erwin of the coffee cup clutched in his suddenly arthritic hands, the plastic carry-out bag that had a blueberry bagel smothered in cream cheese and a giant brownie. "Well, get in here."

Levi locked the door behind Erwin. The deadbolt looked polished, greased. It barely squeaked, snapping into place with finality. Erwin stared and stared at Levi, trying to find the look of a killer in him. Levi met his gaze, at first challenging, that initial fiery defiance Erwin knew, but after a moment it was like the bruise on his face bled all over and Levi weakened under his own conscience right there in front of Erwin’s eyes, finally dropping his head and moving further into the apartment. “Take your shoes off.”

_‘…invited back to a cabin where the incidents unsued…’_

Levi must have politely removed his boots, unguarded. Levi in his socks fighting for his life. Had he killed two men while wearing his knee-high cotton socks? What about the yellow banana socks? Maybe they were white and holey and stained with blood.  
The entrance turned into a split between a cramped kitchen and a small sitting room. 

They took up residence on the couch. Erwin tried to justify his pressing concern, his appearance: “You should let Petra and Hanji know—”

"Know what," Levi cut him off before he bit into his bagel, cream cheese at the corner of his lips. He licked it away, shot Erwin a wary look. 

Erwin took the lid off Levi’s coffee so it would cool faster. No sense letting him burn his tongue. “That you’re…” He stopped.  
Levi chewed, staring at him. 

Levi might very well not be okay.

"My lawyer wants me on the DL. Can’t go blabbing - no that’d they’d sell the story or anything but." He chewed and chewed. Rolled a crumb between his forefinger and thumb contemplatively.

Erwin looked at his hands. At his nails. He expected to see the haunting echo of blood dried into Levi’s nail beds. Red handed. They looked red and cracked. They’d been soft before he’d left, careful and precise instruments. Levi liked to twirl pens through his fingers and trace the rim of his mugs. He liked to press fleeting touches to Erwin’s wrist when they spoke, walking side-by-side, stealing the thump of Erwin’s pulse with the tender pads of his fingers.

The linoleum floor and white walls blared with their spotlessness. Levi would never grow dirty and mold away, he’d never sit still on the down low. Erwin pulled him in by the shoulders , selfish, wanting to slake his own needs. Levi toppled sideways into him, the couch giving so that his weight settled into Erwin’s embrace. He didn’t smell woodland anymore, green-sweet. No lingering smell of snow nor even gunpowder or blood. Nothing of carnage clung to him like a death waft. He’d been scrubbing his small home all these days with bleach and Erwin could smell the chemical wash soaked into him. He wanted to unwrap Levi and check for burns.

"Erwin," Levi said softly, fingers pinching holes into his bagel shielded between them. 

"Whatever happened, whatever you did, I’m glad you’re here," Erwin said. He had wished that he wouldn’t miss Levi when they’d parted for break. Erwin had spent days unaware of him, blocking him out, enjoying the company of others. Positive he’d return to a Levi whole and ever-bloomed like his own personal garden.

To think he could have been lost.

Levi didn’t return his hug, he never did. He just let himself be held. “What I did…you don’t even know. It’s — Fuck.” 

"Tell me, let me know." Erwin pulled back, trying to make himself into a safe space for Levi to inhabit. Levi sat to his right, forcing Erwin to stare at the bruise on his face, to picture any one of the men from the articles striking him.

Levi put his bagel, half eaten, on the table and wiped his hands together to rid them of crumbs. He picked up his coffee. “I was so fucked up, I barely even knew what was happening,” Levi said before he drank. 

Erwin frowned. “Trauma?” Shock could do it, hysterical blindness, adrenaline rush, fear.

"Shrooms," Levi snorted derisively. He lowered the coffee, stared at the milky contents, sweet to the point of sickening. "Farlan and I, we took a bunch of shrooms before we went hiking. Izzy was the sober one. We had it all planned out months ago. We’d start off my winter break like that. Hike and hang out before they had to go back to Delaware and I’d be busy working."

He put the cup down and buried his face into his hands. Erwin shifted uncomfortably, reached out to rub the back of Levi’s neck. Tension ran through him, the muscle of his neck tauter than a baited fishing line bitten on. 

"You don’t have to— "

"I know." Levi looked up, at his far wall, at the alphabetically organized, if scant, bookshelf. "I couldn’t bare it — can’t have you look at me. Like that."

Erwin tried to wipe his face blank. He rubbed the hair at the back of Levi’s skull, softened with length. “Like what?”

Levi only sighed, shook his head. He straightened and took up his coffee once more and drew all of himself onto the couch in a bundle of limbs all folded together so that he was small and nonthreatening, childlike. 

"So we were fucking high. It was good, pretty. The forest, we were deep in, it was waving around and colourful and everything was getting good. Then this dude, this man, he came out of the words. Or into it. He appeared and I thought I was hallucinating, and Farlan too, but Izzy said he was real. Said his name was Nick. And he was kind of old and seemed just as surprised to see us but then — I don’t know. He invited us back to his cabin and we shouldn’t have gone, I should have known better, but I couldn’t think for shit and Izzy was cold so we went with him."

Levi’s lip curled. “So stupid,” he muttered, lapsing into private thought , likely angry thoughts, before he continued. “Anyway. Got to the cabin and it was a nice place but there were two other men there. I should have known better but I wasn’t there - you know, there, enough to be any use.”

The way Erwin heard it, that wasn’t true at all. Levi laced his guilt deeper with each word.

"They offered us some drinks and chatted and then alla sudden Izzy was upset. They said something to her. Then it. It got all messy. We tried to leave and the one guy, Lobov, he had a shotgun." Levi was shaking, the coffee sloshing at the sides of the cup. Levi sat hunched forward, eyes far off.

Erwin clenched his jaw till his temples hurt and his ears felt clogged by the pressure. 

"They wanted to rape her. The one said, one I shot," he licked his lips, breath irregular. "That if she played a little we could all have a good time. Then I remember laughing because I was so scared and Izzy was crying. Farlan tried to get us out and talk us out but — we were so fucked. His nose is broken. I half thought it was all a bad trip. But I told them Izzy didn’t know a dick from an elbow, that if you want a fuck you get a fag."

Erwin was breathing too loudly, listening. Levi laughed, harsh and hysterical. “So I started getting naked right there. Had on long underwear cause it was cold as fuck and they all thought it was funny. I crawled up to them - it was almost like a dream. None of it could be real. Izzy was having a fucking breakdown with Farlan and I thought I was dreaming it all.”

Levi lifted up the coffee and took a sip, shaking from the roots of his hair down to his toes. “When Lobov was getting his dick out, I took the gun and - bang.”

Levi did that wild laugh again, turned to look at Erwin with exhausted eyes. “Ain’t that a fucking trip.”

Erwin’s eyes burned. He shook his head slowly, brought a hand up to cover his mouth. Sickness caught in his throat. Levi looked away, all things wiped from his face. He drank his coffee. 

Erwin swallowed burning bile. “And then?”

Levi winced a smile that fell immediately. “Then I put my goddamn clothes on and we marched Nick down the fucking mountain for two hours and got the goddamn police. Took a long fucking time to get it all sorted out, but Lobov had just gotten out of jail for murder and Thicke was a suspect in a rape and they found kiddy pornos and junk on a few tapes at the cabin. So guess that worked out. Story got spun so I sounded like a hero. Then they went and dug up about my piece of shit dad. Gonna be laughing in my grave bout all this irony,” he said dryly. “Now I’m a killer just like the old man.”

"You saved yourself and your friends," Erwin said, finding his voice a little more powerful than before. He looked at Levi sharply. "You’re not a killer."

Levi twisted the cup round in his hands, looking down at it. “I could have just taken the gun. I didn’t have to shoot them.”

"Levi." Erwin shook his head, surprised. "You were - were almost," he couldn’t make himself say the word, picture the act, the scene. Levi and those men. "You did what you had to do."

"But it was so easy!" Levi snapped, head straight up, eyes on the bookshelf, seeing something that wasn’t there. "I didn’t hesitate. I could have done something else but I shot Lobov and then Thicke and they were pieces of shit but I didn’t even consider it." Levi’s teeth flashed as he bared them and swallowed heavily.

"You were high and the adrenaline-"

"Point blank, guts and bone blown everywhere." Levi said over him. Erwin stopped. "Thicke begged me not to." Levi stopped.  
"He deserved it," Erwin said into the silence. 

Levi slumped. “I didn’t wanna be the one to decide that.”

Erwin wished he’d been there just to give the order and take the blame from Levi. But could he have even done it? If they were alive, if the situation had gone differently — if those men had hurt Levi more and escaped with their lives, Erwin would wish them dead. But was he vengeful enough to kill them himself?

Was Levi wrong?

"You didn’t shoot the last guy." 

"He was praying. The son of a bitch. Couldn’t have him go to heaven on me, could I?" Levi picked up his bagel. Erwin watched him take mechanical bites, revulsion in the curl of his lip. After Levi had finished, licked cream cheese off his thumb, he turned to Erwin. "Tell Petra and Hanji I’m okay."

Erwin reached across the distance between them, slow but not hesitant. Levi didn’t look away from Erwin’s eyes, nor did he flinch when Erwin settled his palm on the side of his head, thumb curled under his ear to touch his cheek, fingers beneath the long crop of his hair. His crew cut had grown long enough that it didn’t prickle.

"Are you okay?"

"I will be."

Erwin sighed. “I’m going to make a suggestion and you tell me whatever you want, alright?”

Levi nodded. Erwin tried not to think about if Levi took his socks off when he took off his long underwear.  
"What if I slept here, on the couch, and after a big breakfast tomorrow, we called them together?" 

Levi blinked. His brows knit down, together. “Why are you even here anyway?”

"Because I knew you’d be alone." Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. 

Levi closed his eyes and rolled the bruise of his cheek into Erwin’s palm. “Can we get pizza?”

"I’ll even make the phone call and pick it up."

Erwin didn’t take his hand away nor did Levi move from his touch. Instead, Levi simply sat, almost in a doze, with Erwin’s palm warm on him. An unseen spring sprung broken behind each eye.They filled to the full until he blinked leaden eyes. Two perfect currents flowed down his cheeks. Erwin wiped them away as fast as he could and drew Levi to him gently, knowing he was only plugging holes on a breaking dam.

They got broccoli and cheese with stuffed crust and cinnamon bites and a bottle of apple cider. Erwin called his mom on the drive to Dominos and the grocery store and told her he’d be staying with Levi tonight.

"You invite that boy here for Christmas," she said. Erwin would broach it tomorrow. His mom had no doubt already bought Levi a Christmas stocking and made him a mason jars of of patent Smith family hot chocolate mix and homemade pumpkin granola.

They ate themselves sick and put on christmas carols. 

"I’m dreaming of a white Christmas," Erwin sang along to Bing Crosby’s dulcet tones, his own voice deep but hushed. Levi lay atop him on the couch, head on Erwin’s chest. "Just like the ones I used to know."

The sharp bone of Levi’s nose dug into him as Levi hid his face and began to sob.

"Levi—"

"Don’t stop."

Erwin sang over the wretched sounds with struggling composure, fingers failing to sooth as they stroked through Levi’s hair.


	11. interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It shall be some time before I update

Erwin dreamed of snowy woods. Of Levi, naked and sexless, burdened by broken black wings, fleeing from bigger, sexed men.  
Erwin woke from the creaking retreat of warmth. He wanted to reach and draw it back but his limbs were strung with the pressure of sleep. He grumbled a complaint.

"Go back to sleep," Levi whispered, his voice stirring Erwin from his eyelids to his lion-heart.

"Am I dreaming again?" Erwin slurred, trying to open his eyes, to find Levi in the moonlight. "Levi?"

"You dream of me?"

Erwin nodded, chin nudging a blanket freshly tucked around him. He thought he felt a kiss on his mouth, soft and vanishing, melting like the first snow.


	12. It's not easy and shouldn't be talked about

Erwin woke up, neck aching to high heaven, and rather alone on the couch. His mouth tasted tacky — he had the vaguest recollection of his dreams, of Levi, of something more — but it was fleeting, gone as he rose from the couch with a stifled groan and a stretch of limbs. 

Levi. 

Erwin rubbed a hand across his face, fingers pushing roughly at his lips. Coming back with Erwin for Christmas, though a possible culture shock - in rough terms - sounded like the best thing to do. Erwin didn’t want to leave him alone, not in this time of crisis, not on the eve of Christmas. 

Levi’s tears had long since dried from Erwin’s shirt. 

“You dream about me?”

Before Erwin could grasp hold the memory, the apartment door opened. Levi came in, sunglasses and a beanie on, sweatshirt hood up. He must have given Erwin some look but it was shielded.

"You farted in your sleep really loudly this morning," Levi greeted as he locked the door behind himself, balancing a paper box in his other hand.

Erwin had long since grown accustomed to such diversions. “I guess I have to admit to having a butthole now,” he sighed, stretching one last time before grabbing his bag up from its discarded space by the door.

Levi laughed at him. Erwin watched him shed his disguise, become organic once more with his middle-part sleep hair and bruises eyes. He looked exhausted. How long had he slept last night on the couch - had he gone back to bed? 

Cinnamon filled the air. “I got cinnamon rolls from the bakery — brush your teeth after,” Levi said, glancing at the baggie in Erwin’s hand. “Coffee?”

Tomorrow morning, Christmas, Erwin would make Levi breakfast. His mom and Levi would sit on the couch under a blanket and they’d put on Rudolph and Erwin would watch them be at peace together while he made too much bacon and eggs. He promised Levi this silently. 

"Yeah, thanks."

Levi aggressively didn’t discuss any of yesterday, dedicated to eating an oversized, cream-cheese syrup drowned pecan cinnamon roll with a fork and knife. Erwin dove in with sticky fingers and rejoiced in Levi’s disapproving frown.

"Animal."

The baby-wet face from yesterday was gone. Levi, with his cracked knuckles, ate his breakfast with all the delicacy of a far removed baron. He'd packed away his vulnerability and looked, aside from the bruises and sleepless red glaze of his eyes, normal. His father had murdered people. Cops. Levi was good at playing normal, for all his idiosyncratic manners.

They called Hanji first, as Levi anticipated a longer conversation with Petra. They used Erwin's phone so as not to induce immediate panic. Hanji was, naturally, still excited and loudly concerned. But despite the intensity of thier voice, they didn't heckle Levi for any length of time.

"Uninjured?"

"More or less."

"Getting counseling?"

Levi hesitated. Erwin looked at him firmly and nodded his head once, minutely. Levi looked at the phone, speaker setting projecting Hanji loud and clear. "Yes."

"Great," Hanji chirped. "Sure you're busy with Erwin, and Ill see you soon anyway."

Levi blinked, surprised by the abruptness even if he was relieved. "Right."

"Levi? Next time, consider that other people care."

"...Right."

They took a moment of silence after as though someone had really died. It stretched, and almost as though Erwin thought that Levi's courage must be kept up by his own doing, turned to prompt Levi into calling Petra. But, Levi had a determined guilty look on his face.

"This one might take a little longer," he said.

Erwin nodded. "I have my laptop."

Levi took Erwin's phone to his room, shutting the door behind him. Erwin checked his email, texted his mom and checked buzzfeed. Eventually, he pissed and decided he and Levi should get a move on. He knocked on the bedroom door, and full of his own belligerence and justification, opened it before permission was granted. 

Levi looked up, sitting on the edge of his bed.

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to head out?"

Levi frowned, confused. "What?"

"My mom and I think you should have Christmas with us. It's just the two of us, and there's plenty of room." Erwin had gone ahead and just figured Levi would come with him, that'd he'd agree readily. Erwin saw nothing for him in this apartment to convince him to stay. 

"Wow. Christmas for the killer Jew." Erwin couldn't read tone into what he'd said nor did his face show an inclination for or against the idea. 

"Levi," Erwin sighed. "Don't talk like that."

Levi chewed his lip. "You don't have to do this shit. Jesus Erwin. What the fuck are you thinking." He pushed his hands through his hair, frustrated. He pulled at his face, stretched it down like a mask, horrifying. Then his hands fell and Levi looked perfectly remote, blinking and ghostly.

Erwin swallowed and bit his molars together."I'm thinking I want you here, there, with me. Come home with me. I want you there, my mom wants you there." Erwin crossed to the bed and sat down, uninvited, watching Levi for a protest but Levi showed none. "Consider it a vacation. You won't have to worry about a thing."

Levi's hesitation was doubting, but he agreed. Maybe he was thinking about last night. "Sure, fine."

Erwin smiled gently.

Levi took one look at Erwin's face and shook his head. "Lemme pack quick. You're driving?"

"Yep."

Levi squinted. "Even driving me back here or you gonna make me catch the bus?"

"I'm your man," Erwin promised. Levi rolled his eyes and turned away, shooing Erwin over his shoulder. 

"I'm holding you to that, Erwin. Go take a nice long shit while I throw a bag together." Levi tossed him his cell phone. 

It was warm from being in Levi's hand. Erwin turned it over in his palm before sliding it into his pocket. "How's Petra?" 

Levi stoppped at his drawer. "I,..she's...." He fiddled at his drawer, opened it with a groan of wood. Levi blew out a breath, turned back to Erwin, face clouded by anger. "Why'd you come here? Weren't you skiing? I could have been doing something, you know. Been somewhere and you woulda driven here for nothing."

It took Erwin back but only for a moment. He rested against the doorframe, crossed his arms. "How's Petra?" he repeated.

Levi's face constricted in rage before he dropped his head. "Fuck." He went back to his drawer. Erwin looked around the room again.The blinds were down, the light overhead a sickly yellow. A sickly room. "I thought it'd be easier not to talk to anyone about it. I don't want to talk about it but that's all there is to talk about. And I --"

He tossed a bundle of clean underwear on his bed, socks. Went to another drawer for jeans. "I don't want to talk about it and --"

Erwin let Levi work it out. Eventually, Levi looked back at him. "I don't wanna talk about it," he said plaintively.

Erwin's mouth did a smile and a show. "I'm your man."

Levi puffed a breath and folded his clothes up neatly. "You are, big guy."

And so it wasn't talked about.

~~

Levi nodded off on the drive to Erwin's. Erwin avoided all christmas music on the radio and kept to classic rock; Levi, who had no significant knowledge of music before 1990 still managed to identify the trademark drum intros to ACDC three times correctly before he finally succumbed to sleep, head bumping against the cold window. Erwin thought he also might be faking it, but didn't begrudge him it in the least. 

Erwin cut the engine in the driveway but didn't wake Levi immediately. Somewhere, two weeks into the future, they'd be back at school. Levi would sleep beside him across their room and they would pretend that the five page essay that had was the greatest threat to their peace of mind.

Laughable now. 

Levi moaned in his sleep - or in wake, as he was shifting now, lifting his tired heavy head off the bent angle it'd been resting. "Ow," he whined, rubbing at the stiffness of his neck. Both of them weren't having luck with that sort of thing, it seemed. 

Erwin watched him blink, watched him look around the dead silent car, the gray of a Christmas Eve morning around them. Levi turned to him, battered - healing. Slowly. "There already?"

Erwin somehow didn't smile, but he felt like it. "Yeah. You fell asleep."

Levi rubbed at his lips and nodded. "Hey, uhm." He shifted, pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands. He looked down at his lap, inspected the cuffs of his sweatshirt. "Erwin. I am thankful. For what you're doing. You're great - I - you're a really good...friend." 

Levi's profile tightened, eased. He picked his head back up and looked at Erwin again, maybe or maybe not knowing the way his words stitched themselves into Erwin's skin. "You're a good man," he said earnestly, the way the horribly thankful say to their saviors.

Erwin wished his dad were there to hear those words. They filled Erwin with conflict, just like Levi. "You're welcome, Levi. You know I--" Erwin stared at him, at Levi's hesitant, baited expression. "I think the same of you. I really do."

But they weren't to talk about it. 

Levi swallowed and nodded a few times, like they'd agreed on a plan. "Yeah. Thanks." he cleared his throat and jerked his head. "Guess we should get inside."


	13. Playing boys

Sarah wrapped Levi up into her arms upon sight. “Oooh, sweety, I’m so glad you came,” she crooned. She was tall for a woman and strong for a woman. Erwin got his cheekbones from her. She had the bulk of motherhood and middle age around her and a heartfelt energy.

Levi did not hug back, he never did. He did however gasp as he poked his face up free from the smothering folds of her oversized sweater and wheeze out: “Thank you for the invitation.”

Sarah let him go and cupped his cheek and pursed her lips over the bruise. Erwin could do nothing to interfere, rather taking Levi’s bag back to the guest room opposite his own bedroom. 

”’—won’t have to worry, we aren’t the church type,” his mother was saying as he rejoined them in the kitchen, the center of all domestic life. “We went a bit more after John’s death, but the pastor stepped down and we didn’t take to the new one and the whole thing,” Sarah smiled at Levi, “it felt a little like I was trying too hard. And Erwin never liked church anyway.”

She winked at Erwin. Levi looked at him curiously.

"How come your parents have normal names and you’re  _Erwin?_ ”

Erwin nudged him towards the kitchen table to sit. “As if you can talk. Want some cider? Mom, we still have the cider from the apple farm, right?”

"Mhmm, muffin," she confirmed distractedly. Erwin blushed over the pet name; Levi looked at him with a vicious smirk. 

"Muffin," Levi whispered. Erwin flipped him off even as he poured Levi a mug of cider. There was something fiercely disturbingly wrong about the thought of Levi calling him muffin. 

Levi called him big guy. 

"Hot or cold?" 

Levi held out his hands. Erwin gave the mug over. Levi sipped it and looked at it pensively. Sipped it again and smacked his lips a few times. Handed it back.

"Hot."

Into the microwave it went. 

"Levi, do you do much for Hannuakah?" his mom asked. Erwin listened intently for his answer as the microwave droned on.

Levi twisted sideways in his seat to watch Sarah pinch the crust of a pie around the rim of its glass dish. “Not really. Not without my family, it’s a bit…pointless.” He sighed slightly. “Hillel is good for Yom Kippur and Sukkot, though.” 

Right, their school did have a Jewish student community. Erwin almost forgot. Levi never really talked about it, these invisible parts of himself.

"Now what are those two, exactly?" Sarah asked, effortlessly drawing Levi into conversation that ran twice as smooth as the train wrecks he and Erwin had been having of late.

"Yom Kippur is the day we Jews repent for our sins. We fast to afflict our souls, to provoke in ourselves to confess and obtain pardon.” Levi’s eyes glazed over in thought. Sarah looked over her shoulder, then back to her pie. “It will be a welcome time for me next year. Normally it’s petty things but…”

"And Sukkot?" she prompted, picking up on the dreaded silence.

"At this point, it’s a bit of a casual festival. It’s nice."

"You have good holidays," she said. The microwaved beeped, startling Erwin from his repose against the counter. Levi smiled when he took his next drink of cider, pinching the mug in his fingers in his funny way. 

"OH! Damn," Sarah swore suddenly. Both of the boys jumped.

"What’s wrong?" Erwin was quick to ask, at her side in an instant, as if the pie might have bitten her and caused her outcry.

"I have ham for dinner," she said, looking at Levi so guiltily. He flushed up.

"It’s fine, Sarah."

"I’m so sorry, Levi, I wasn’t even thinking when I picked it up from the store. Well, I guess I didn’t know if you were - I mean — I’ve got green bean casserole and corn bread.”

Levi looked at her warmly. “Thank you, Sarah. Erwin mostly bribed me here with pie, so as long as there’s that, I’m happy.”

Erwin really wanted to believe that was the truth.

~~~~

"Levi, sweety-pie," it was happening. His mom was stacking on the pet names. By the time Levi left his house, he’d be Levi sweety-pie apple-tart banana-bear the third.

Levi only blinked rapidly at the endearment, just finished making whipped cream for the pies. Levi had been overjoyed to know that Sarah swore by homemade whipped cream. “Yes’m?”

Sarah smiled down at a can of cream of mushroom soup. “Can you go get the case of nice silverware from amoire in the living room. It’s on the shelf, beneath the glass ware.”

Erwin hid his confused frown. Levi looked to him briefly for some reassurance; Erwin nodded to him. They’d been in the kitchen pretty much all day so far. It’d been mostly contented silences and catching up between him and his mom with Levi working under their guidance and seeming to enjoy the busyness and normalcy.

So Levi left the room and Sarah turned on Erwin. “I want him to stay longer, a few days,” she whispered.

Erwin, who’d been pinching pecans, coughed on the flakes of sweet skin. “Uh, yeah?” He craned his head around to make sure the coast was clear. “Then ask him.”

His mom pinched her lisp together and gave him  _a look_. “You know that’s not how it works. You ask him,” she ordered, “you convince him. Then you come to me for permission and I say yes. But that boy - your friend - it’d be wrong to send him off after just a day.”

Erwin rubbed his eyebrows and nodded and took up position at his own pie station as Levi came in with the silverware. “Do you want me to set the table?” 

"That’d be perfect. In fact, set that down and go back for the chargers."

His brows mushed together. “The what?”

"They’ll be gold plastic plates. They’re in there somewhere. And then grab the white plates with the little gold reindeer on them." Off he went once more.

"It was hard enough to get him to come in the first place," Erwin said without missing a beat after Levi disappeared. "He won’t stay. He doesn’t want to burden anyone."

"Then you convince him. Don’t you want him here?" his mom asked, looking at Erwin sideways. 

"Of course I do." Erwin didn’t want to let Levi out of his sight, not again. "But you have no idea how stubborn he is."

She snorted. “Please, muffin, I raised you.”

~~~~~  
He and his mom went through the decorum of saying a special Christmas Grace; Levi bowed his head and closed his eyes and steepled his fingers in imitation.

Erwin served Levi a giant slice of his very own pecan pie and loaded it with whipped cream. And that was after his mom had forced nearly half the pumpkin pie onto Levi.

"Okay, I’m not hibernating for the winter, Erwin," Levi fussed, trying to guard his slice from more whipped cream, fending off the serving spoon with his fork and scowling at Erwin harmlessly. Fussy boy.

"Maybe you should." Erwin couldn't help himself and dabbed the spoon against Levi’s nose.

Sarah smiled; Levi’s eyes flared wide, crossed, tried to look at the blob of whipped cream smeared on the tip of his nose. Erwin grinned and took his seat, satisfied with the moment.

~~~~

"Jesus fuck, Erwin, turn around," Levi growled. It stopped Erwin short. 

"What, what’s wrong?"

Levi laid sideways across Erwin’s bed and looked so serious, eyes narrow and gray. “Turn around. There’s something on you.”

"What?" Erwin looked down at himself, assessing his henley and sweatpants. He turned  in a slow circle. "It should be clean. What’s wrong?"

"Jesus fuck," Levi repeated. He was forced to lay on his back, stomach overstuffed and round beneath his shirt. "Look at that bubble butt."

Heat plagued Erwin’s cheeks immediately like a curse stronger than any in Exodus. He twisted around, eying his ass, sending Levi fleeting glances of concern. “What?

Levi blew out a breath. “Erwin. It’s ridiculous. Your ass. That might be the pie gone to my head but I’m pretty sure your ass is a serious problem right now.” He drawled on in his usual deadpan at this point, almost lazy, displeased, yet even upside-down, Levi looked at him heavily.

Erwin could not help but be deeply pleased by this compliment and the long dark look Levi gave him unabashedly. He made a show of pulling his shirt down lower, as if to shield himself, but all that did was stretch the already thin cotton farther down his body, probably breaking the fibers or something. To Levi, all it did was draw attention to the fact that Erwin’s nipples were hard, distracting bumps. “Don’t objectify me.”

Levi rolled a little, smiled, lips sideways. Everything was sideways, just this side of wrong. Levi’s mouth looked like the slit of a cunt. “You’ve got a goddamn bubble butt, Erwin Smith,”  Levi pronounced like a death sentence.

Erwin, bolstered, reached around to grip and squeeze his buttcheeks through his sweatpants. This was good. This was the Levi he knew, toeing the line of acceptable behavior. Erwin broke into relieved laughter. Levi grinned and got off the bed, made his way, feet tripping over the too-long length of his own sweatpants. They were men’s and thus didn’t fit him properly, the cuffs unrolling across his bare feet.

"My anaconda do," Levi snorted. He listed to the side, around, Erwin turning in slow circles to keep him in sight. Levi’s mouth worked in quick expressions, fighting off smiles, pursing into studious pouts, frowning and grinning and showing teeth. Erwin squared off against him, prepared for when Levi eventually surged forward to tackle him in boyish play. They caught each others’ hands, Erwin warding Levi off from taking hold of his butt. That’s what Levi was after, hands groping at the air, fingers pinching like crab claws. 

"Stop trying to pinch my butt," Erwin said, spinning Levi away from him and pushing. Levi used the momentum to turn back, to dive in against him. 

"I gotta, I gotta. C’mere." Levi tackled Erwin around his middle; Erwin fought against it, trying desperately to keep Levi’s hands from his ass. He wouldn’t have minded, no, not at all, but that was not the game. He picked Levi up and tossed him onto the bed. It thumped with is impact, the comforter puffed up like a startled animal before it fell still.

Levi jumped up again but Erwin met him, faster, bigger, pinned him down and onto his pie-filled stomach. They struggled, but Erwin sat on Levi, trapped him between his thighs. Tempted and weak, Erwin pushed his hands under Levi’s shirt to tickle him.

"NO! Erwin!" Levi squealed and jerked, laughter gasping and frantic like balloons popping. "Oh god — fuck — I’m gonna puke."

Erwin found him sufficiently conquered and stopped but did not let Levi free. “Not on my bed,” he said, running his hands in much gentler manner over Levi’s back, settled on his shoulders to rub soothingly.

Levi breathed roughly, holding still as Erwin tried to offer some apology through his hands

Erwin had never been on top of Levi like this and he couldn’t help himself from imagining it differently. Levi was fast and strong, but so small, so easy to overpower….

Erwin squeezed his eyes shut and got off him. Levi didn’t move, watched him through the corner of his eye.

"I was thinking," Erwin said a little too loudly.

"Concerning," Levi mumbled. Erwin ignored him.

"I was thinking, you should stay longer. A few days." He dropped down onto his back to give him a reason not to look at Levi. "Hang out here. I want to introduce you to some of my friends."

A silence stretched that forced him to sit up and look at Levi. Not to do so would leave unprepared in strategy. Levi was frowning at him, suspicion plain on his face.

“I didn’t bring enough underwear,” he said.

“We have a laundry machine. And my mom probably put a pack of whitey tighties in your stocking.” He laid his hand on the round curve of Levi’s stomach. Felt the air whistle out of him. 

Levi looked away, a shy blush across his cheeks. He considered then looked back to Erwin with his nose wrinkled in distaste. “I hate when you wear whitey tighties - swear my dick’ll get stuck limp.”

“Maybe don’t look.” Erwin cocked a brow.

“That’s no fun,” Levi sighed. He shuffled around and laid down in Erwin’s bed as if to sleep. “But okay,” he said quietly.

“Okay?” Erwin rolled to face him. Levi had his eyes closed. 

“Yeah. Tell your mom thanks.” He kept his eyes closed and breathed deeply.

Erwin traced Levi’s face with his eyes, went tip-toeing over the flutes of his eyelashes. He wanted to touch Levi. He wanted to touch the dark vein beneath the bruise on his face. He closed his eyes too and didn’t ask if Levi was going to sleep with him again tonight.


	14. Bare as bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have written this in December. Fluffy, angst yeah.

Erwin woke up as he fell asleep: alone. But not even the emptiness of his bed could dampen the renewing spirit of Christmas that filled him. He rose earlier than either his mom or Levi, and he knew it immediately. The world seemed to hold its breath all around him, and his bed’s mighty creaking was the first break of sound. Outside, it snowed on an already blanketed ground. The gray clouds in a cold-boiled morning sky did not suck the cheer of sunshine away from this Christmas morning so much as it swathed it like the cold of a freshly made bed.

Erwin threw on extra layers, feet snug in mocosain slippers. Padding softly, he snuck downstairs to see the warm glow of the Christmas tree left on from overnight filling the livingroom. His mom had saved ornaments for him to decorate the night before and Levi had accepted half the share, taking to the task with his keen eye for style. 

Three red velvet socks hung from the mantle. His and Levi’s bulged, loaded with disposable razors, travel-sized mouthwash, tightly rolled briefs and jars of holiday sweet mixes. 

Erwin embraced the cold faux-mica kitchen countertop with the palms of his hands. Breathed. Set to filling the house with the sounds of morning and ordinary magic, things he longed for like a tired happy old man. Bacon, potatos, leftover pie set to reheat in the oven. Champagne and orange juice stood at the ready inside the fridge door. 

Levi found him first, appearing in his pajamas, stepping delicately into the threshold of Erwin’s kitchen within which he moved as a king would his throne room. Levi stepped lightly, curiously his eyes seeming to be set on a new wild tilt that made him, in this special morning and with his sleepy-soft face, an elegant fae. 

But then, Erwin was smitten. He was horribly in love and wanted nothing more than for Levi to come just a few steps closer and wait for a kiss like this was theirs to have.

"Good morning, Levi," he said, looking at him even as he transferred strips of dripping bacon into a nest of paper towels.

Levi followed the food only briefly before he seemed to really take in the world around him, blinking once, twice, blinking at Erwin before his lips grew a slow smile. “Merry Christmas, Erwin.”

A powerful sense of manhood burned in Erwin at the sight of that smile. He wanted to possess and protect all that it implied. 

The floorboards creaked upstairs. Erwin grinned at Levi, giddy. “Merry Christmas, Levi.”

"Holy…crap," Levi chuckled at the look on him, "you look like  a little boy."

"Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Let’s have mimosas!" Sarah Smith came into the kitchen with vigor, capturing Levi first in a brief and passing hug, though spotting his head with kisses before she went onto squeezing her son. Erwin returned the affection equally. "Mmm, it smells good in here, muffin. Wish I had you round every morning. Bad bartender though."

Erwin rolled his eyes to Levi who stared at them with that look of mystification on him again, as he adopted in sight of Sarah’s mothering. Levi twitched out some lesser smile, disspelled, and opened the fridge.

"Can you pop champagne alright?" Sarah asked, setting the coffee to brew. Erwin had filled it in preparation, and in a moment the machine chugged and trickled. Levi inhaled deeply, no doubt slobbering like a Pavlovian dog at the scent.

"Yes’m."

Glasses were got, mugs were filled, pie and potatoes and bacon dispersed. Erwin struggled to shake his eyes from Levi and was caught more than once by both Levi and his mom.

In the trips back and forth from the kitchen to the living room where they were to eat and drink and be merry sprawled on the floor a bit like children, charming at this hour, Levi and Erwin ended up in the kitchen together to carry over the plates of pie.

"Here, lemme - ahm, more?" Erwin stood beside Levi at the counter, a spatula to dollop out whipped cream held poised like a sword.

"Might as well," Levi went on tip toes to get the advantage to see into the bowl. "S’almost gone. Use it up." 

So Erwin as before drowned Levi’s pie in cream. Levi watched him suspicious for any funny business; Erwin only smiled, licked the spatula clean. Levi snorted, and though the job was done, did not pull away from Erwin’s side where he was close pressed and sharing warmth.

Erwin dumped the tongue-washed spatula into the scraped empty bowl. Levi put it into the sink and ran hot water over it. In the living room, Sarah closed her eyes and said a prayer for her husband.

"I’m happy here," Levi said, looking out the window. The house across the street doused the snow falling between them with a faint yellow glow from its Christmas lights hung from the porch. "Thank you."

Erwin put an arm around him for a one-sided hug. “I’m glad you’re here and happy,” he said sincerely. Levi breathed out from deep within himself, shakey, and he shrunk a little with the loss of air. Erwin held him tighter and bent down to kiss the part of Levi’s hair. He smelled, finally, like Levi ought to smell. Erwin was sure his lips overlapped with the space his mom had kissed. He also knew that his love was bare.

Levi nudged his face against Erwin’s ribs. Another sigh. “Erwin,” he whispered, pain bare. Erwin still had his lips to Levi’s crown and he pulled away now. Rubbed brotherly at Levi’s back and stepped away, his and his mom’s plates in his hand. 

~~

They caught snowflakes on their tongues. Erwin watched them melt in Levi’s hair. Melting. A kiss melting like the first snow. 

~~

The snow stopped around noon. It crunched beneath their feet on the walk down the block. “What’s her name again, Nana?”

"Nanaba, but yeah, Nana works. And use neutral pronouns. Like Hanji."

Levi nodded, a flash of guilt, a promise to do so. “Right….do you think gender’s really real? With people like Hanji and I guess Nanaba — it’s kind of…it makes me think.”

Erwin lifted his eyebrows, felt cold pinch in the creases formed on his forehead “About gender?”

Levi nodded once more. He looked peaceful. “Yeah. Hanji’s so  _Hanji._ The whole gender thing doesn’t make a lot of sense when you listen to Hanji talk about it.”

Erwin hummed. “I really don’t know all the theory behind it. I probably should. But I think it’s real, it’s just bigger than man and woman.” He took a moment to think before going on, affirming. “I feel like a man. As big and broad of a definition that may be, I’m a man.”

Levi looked up at him, took a moment to consider before he agreed. “A good man.”

His words were so heavy.

"Do you?" Erwin asked, feeling as though he had a clue of where this was going.

"I’m definitely not a girl. And I think I’m a man most of the time. I think…I’m happy enough to be a man. A weird man." He shrugged. "It was just something on my mind, is all." Dismissed.

~~

Mike did not let on that he knew way too much about Levi. Levi gawked at him behind a veil of indifference. 

"I can’t believe none of you have a decent ugly sweater on," Nanaba said.

"A decent ugly sweater," Erwin repeated, amused. They made an attempt to flick his nipple.

"So Levi," Nanaba said, "what are your thoughts on big bouncy cartoon boobs?"

And that’s how they ended up playing Skull Girls in Mike’s room for an hour before Levi gave up and settled to watching Erwin and Mike beat each other up via scantily clad anime girls.

"God, I’m gay trash," Nanaba sighed, not nearly offended enough by the character’s design as one should be. Levi snorted on painful laugh.

"Same, same."

Comraderie.

Mike owned Erwin’s ass and turned around, moving swiftly for a man that size, and kissed the bottom of Nananba’s cold bare foot. “Gay for me,” he said.

Nanaba shoved their foot at his big nose. Erwin and Levi met each other’s eyes over the scene of coupley affection. They looked away. Mike brought a case of beer in from outside, the cans so cold they hurt to hold.

~~

Streetlamps warded off pitch dark on the walk home. Despite the cold that sank deep into their bodies, standing outside of Erwin’s house seemed pleasant. Perhaps it was the wide open sky, now clear, glittering with stars.

Levi knocked his heels together like a soldier in a movie until he was perfectly straight, a flag planted in the ground. A stake of claim; then, he fell. He fell into the snow. The snow crusted white and opalescent, reflecting that pale ghost moon, like melted sugar, like uncharted ice. He broke the surface and sank with a deep crunching sound, bones chomped, body cut out like a cartoon into the crystalline surface. And he laid still. If Erwin were sober, if he were perfectly himself, maybe he would be more concerned. But all he could think was how perfect an angel Levi would make. How Levi looked in this six inch subar grave, head buried among layers of powder and ice. Erwin turned and let himself fall, fell into the private unmarked grave. The world echoed around him, frozen, biting around his bare red-blistered ears. He wondered if death sounded like this, hollow and creaking, the whole frozen world creaking around his ears. Levi somewhere beside him in the cold ground.

Maybe he was dead. Maybe this was death visiting him. If so, he could die. Levi was inches away. He loved him. He loved him cold and whole.

Erwin sat up, unsure of the time that had passed. He’d closed his eyes and drifted, drunk. He struggled against cold stiffness and planted bare numb hands into the snow beside Levi as he leaned over him.

"It’s time to leave,” he said. The house was only a few steps away.

Levi stared past him to the sky; his lips were purple and his cheeks red like fall leaves. Erwin hovered over him before leaning down and kissing him, like he meant for Levi to rise, like Snow White.

Levi kissed back, mouth deadly hot. They broke it abruptly, agreed upon. Erwin took Levi by the hand, seen but not felt in their numbness, and hauled him up. A minute inside had them shaking and hurting inside their own skin. Levi stared at him while the colour returned to his face. 

"Y-you l-love me-ee," Levi chattered, clenching and unclenching his hands.

"Y-yes."

Levi shook his head which looked heavy and full of burdens. “D-don’t. Erwin,” he croaked, voice a little raw. He swallowed, coughed, sniffed, tried to clear himself up. “I love you too,” he said, trying so hard not to chatter. “But it’s t-too soon.”

There was more to that. Erwin nodded and jerked his head, tucked his hands into his armpits. “Go sh-shower. Get warm,” he ordered, wanting a moment to collapse into himself and blink out.

~~

Levi sat on the edge of his bed once Erwin had cleaned up. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Levi said, “and just let us pretend.”

Erwin hummed. It was his own fault. “No. It was coming.” He dared himself to meet Levi’s eyes. Levi waited for direction, hesitating on an edge. “Why should we wait?”

The way Levi grimaced proved that he’d been hoping Erwin would know for him. “C’mon, with all this shit. I’m not gonna bring you into it,” he said.

Erwin didn’ like that but he saw the merits in not wanting a distraction right now. He should have held himself back, but it’d been brewing between them for so long. “I understand. You should focus on yourself and what you need to do. I want to support you.” He felt very mature and stupid.

Levi nodded, looking down. “We’re too young.”

Erwin laughed, surprised. “Wait, what? For sex?” Levi’s face flashed and Erwin regretted his words. “I’m sorry. Levi.”

"I want you to love me forever, not now. Not…now."

Erwin rubbed his head, looked at him frustrated. Forever was a long time. “I don’t understand.”

Levi was bright red. “What if we date now and shit and we get tired of each other.”

Erwin smiled. “That’s not how it works.”

"Well, I don’t know! I don’t know how loving dedicated relationships works. I don’t want you to get tired of me or something and be all mercurial and shit."

Erwin touched his wrist, and when Levi didn’t jerk away, he wrapped his fingers around it so easily and found his pulse to feel it hammering. “Levi,” he coaxed. “Levi.” 

Levi looked at him, head ducked.

"I love you, Levi." Levi did not curse him, so Erwin continued. "Let me love you, please."

"I’m…" Scared. Erwin waited. Levi licked his lips and looked at Erwin’s mouth. "I kissed you. At my apartment," he confessed.

Erwin blinked, frowned. “When? When I was asleep?”

"Yeah," Levi said guiltily. "I’m so fucking sorry. I just - I can’t. I can’t do this right now." His heart beat on under Erwin’s fingers. "Can you wait?"

"Yes," Erwin promised. "I’ll wait."

"Will you really?"

"I promise. I’m your man."

Levi turned twenty without notice. “Yeah. You are, big guy.” He twisted Erwin’s grip so they could clasp hands. Squeezed. 


	15. Cautioned steps

Erwin’s mom sent him away in the morning on errands. This, to all parties, was an obvious and unveiled ousting to keep her and Levi alone. Alone together as Erwin had found them, both in pajamas, drinking coffee and speaking in soft conspiratorial tones. Levi must have beaten the sun awake on December 26th because he’d made them all breakfast, done the dishes and cleaned the ground floor of the Smith house meticulously. Every household chore known to man had been completed aside from vacuuming.

Sarah vibrated with her intolerance — Erwin must have missed the scolding. He could imagine it: “Levi, you’re a guest. Don’t life a finger today, don’t even so much as rinse out a mug.”

Levi, being Levi, would disobey. Erwin knew this just as he knew that during the forty minutes it’d take him to drop off a casserole and pie to the homeless shelter and return home, that his mom would have words with Levi. Good words, but still. 

~~~

Erwin’s mom mystified Levi for many reasons, least of which was that she had given birth and reared Erwin. She conducted herself as one might imagine Erwin’s mother would, but at once, such a thought could not being to collect into human shape. The first few times Levi had met her, brief abrupt encounters at college where Sarah Smith’s primary focus was kissing her baby boy’s prominent cheekbones, Levi was background noise. 

But Erwin called home twice a week and he loved Levi. So, over time, Sarah had grown to love him without Levi ever knowing it. He knew it now. 

"I figured you wanted to be alone," Sarah said to him at around eight am as Levi was wiping down the kitchen counters. She scared him with her appearance and words, made him feel caught and naked. But then, that was too many people these days. "But I can’t let you keep cleaning. I’ll make coffee."

She owned this home and moved knowing that fact. Levi was a little boy. Levi was so tiny he could fit into her lined palm. Mother’s had a certain way of freeing people from embarrassment. “Go to the bathroom, catch yourself a moment.”

Catch himself.

Levi rubbed at his face with the back of his hands, dragging the rough cuff of his sweatshirt across his tender hot cheeks. The sky had been such a dark lovely blue that he’d started crying - for the better part of an hour. Merciless, silent weeping. The entire Smith family, all two of them, had seen these ugly ruined parts of him.

~~~

Once returned, Levi was locked in the bathroom, reportedly soaking in the tub. Beneath the crack of the door seeped the smell of his mom’s Avon bubble bath. Erwin couldn’t place the small, other than familiar. Medicinal.

"I think he’s using the last of the rosemary and mint wash," his mom said, guiding a dumbstruck Erwin away from the door where he stood like a sentry. A wayward one, unsolicited, skulking. "I talked to him about the trial."

Erwin’s mind stuttered. “He doesn’t want to talk about it,” he scolded. Sarah Smith, however, rose above the words of boys. 

"Well he did. We had a long talk while you were gone," on the errand  _she had sent him on_ , Erwin refuted in his mind. He hadn’t wanted to be gone. “And we’re going to go and support him. It’s right before the second semester. I know he has his other little friends that were involved, but you and I are going to be there too. Try on your suit and make sure it fits okay. I’ll get it dry-cleaned.”

Did his mom know they had kissed, that they loved? Erwin stared at her retreating back as she returned to the newspaper. That her son was so in love he was willing to wait while Levi fought off the evils of his struggle?

"Oh, that’s awful," Sarah sighed, clicking her tongue sympathetically. "Mr. Launter, do you remember him? He sang in the choir, He’s passed away, on Christmas eve. It’s okay, I suppose. He was eighty six."

~~~

Levi carried a cloud of the medicinal soap smell around him for the day. His bruise was turning green around the edges. The colours ran together, waterstains that might spread across his skin. His eyes were onyx and stone and still. 

"Hey," he greeted, looking up from a sheet of paper. The guest bed was strewn with them, circled around Levi like supplicants. He had his hair brushed over to one side, though his undercut had grown out as to lessen the dramatic effect. "How was the soup kitchen or whatever?"

"It was the winter shelter, but uh, good. I guess?" Erwin reclined on the bed, along the edge and careful not to mess any of the papers. A few slid towards him. Levi drew them closer, nodded.

"That’s cool. I guess?" 

They shared brief, insincere smiles. 

"So my mom said she talked to you about the trial?" Erwin might as well get on with it.

Levi confirmed with a look. 

"Is that okay with you?"

Levi shrugged. “Sure yeah. I guess.” A sour face at his own repetition. “You already know and your mom isn’t horrified by it. And it’s not like it’s a secret cause the whole nation knows,” he added bitterly. “It’ll be boring as fuck. It’s over whether Nick is guilty too. He says he didn’t know what was going to happen and that none of the child pornography is his or that he knew it was there.” 

"Do you think he’s innocent?" Erwin asked. 

Levi sighed and pushed the papers away from himself. They were from his lawyer, it looked. He leaned back on his hands.

"No. I don’t. He’s a pastor hanging out with evil men," and Levi did not utter the condemnation lightly, full of fire. "And kiddy porn. Are you kidding. I’m sure they’ll argue that he was trying to save their souls and it was wrong place wrong time, but even though he hadn’t whipped his dick out or hit any of us, he still didn’t help us. That’s at least collaboration or whatever-"

"Being an accessory," Erwin murmured.

"Right. An accessory. So fuck him. He lured us there, the creepy fuck." Levi sat upright again and wrapped his arms around himself. This time, Erwin did not try to touch him. "You know," Levi said at length, "they say that pedos get killed in jail."

"Will he be tried as one?"

"There are multiple charges. I think possession of child pornography is listed."

Erwin didn’t dare ask if Levi wanted him to die. If he deserved to die.. He’d been praing at the time that Levi had lowered the shotgun. Praying for his earthyl body or maybe to forgive his sinful soul.

"Either way, he’ll burn in Hell," Levi whispered. Levi would wash his hands of the man and the duty of punishing him. 

~~~

The day had melted the top layer of snow all around the town and night brought it back to an icy sheen, hard and compact. Levi didn’t have snow boots, just his regular clomping about boots. He winked at Erwin and put his feet into plastic grocery bags and then shoved them into his boots. Sledding would lose its thrill quickly otherwise.

The shape of their bodies looked like trenches in the snow. Erwin stopped, remembering the kiss. Levi’s mouth had been a hearth, the heart-fire of a home. Erwin had thought of its depth and beer-bitter taste and the way Levi’s tongue had rubbed against his own. He wanted to kiss Levi again, he wanted to make love to Levi. Push himself inside his core and wrap him up. Even when his thoughts turned lewd, it was always making love. The distinction, that he did not want to simply  _fuck_ Levi, absolved Erwin of guilt. 

So standing before the place they’d kissed, he’d opened his mouth to apologize. 

"Not bad," Levi said, beating him to it, speaking aloud his own conclusions. Erwin closed his mouth with a click. Levi looked up at him, brows lifted, face indulgent. He knocked his shoulder against Erwin’s bicep, all the highest he could reach. "Come on, big guy, quit being gay for five seconds." And he walked on to Mike’s house, each step cautioned over a film of ice. 

~~~


	16. bright dark things to come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm not dead just mad busy. This is sort of me just being indulgent and mismanaging time. Won't update for a long while. But, I do have the story all outlined.

It was Nanaba who dictated the process of sledding.

"Thought it was self explanatory," Levi mumbled, words swaddled behind an itchy wool scarf Sarah insisted he borrow: a flamboyant teal. 

"No," Nana said, running a hand over their curling hair before reseating their hat down over their head. "Mike and Erwin have to go first and make trails. They’re heavy enough to crush the snow down."

It was true. Levi and Nana couldn’t create the momentum to pile drive down the hill like two mammoths could. Halfway down the rather steep hill that promised to be an absolute bitch to climb back up, Nana cupped their hands around their mouth, puffing air like a dragon. They hollered: “Don’t go near the chicken wire.”

The boys knew the hill well enough even though the last time they’d played felt so far away. They scooted their butts, going bit by bit, leaving behind a white trail that promised after a few rounds to send them swift and rocketting to near death. Working the trail was the easy part.

Their feet sank past the crunching snow to the ends of their boots. The weight of it tugged at their kneecaps. 

"Won’t have this in Jamaica," Mike said, not even remotely out of breath. Erwin wasn’t winded as they reached the summit, but he was sure he’d ache somewhere after tonight. 

"You’re going to Jamaica?" That was news to him. 

"Nana and I—"

"Mike," Nana whined, driving the end of their saucer into the snow where it stuck. "You’ll jinx us."

Levi cocked his head, but it was Erwin’s place to smile with curiosity. “Jinx what? Are you two eloping?”

Mike sniffed. “I’d never do a beach wedding…” he looked at Nana puppyishly. “We’re applying for an internship.”

Nana groaned and flopped their hands into the air. “You’ve jinxed us.” They took up their saucer like something mighty, smacked it on the ground and sat at the crest of Mike’s rough-worn trail. 

"Telling Erwin is for good luck." Mike crouched behind Nana and put his hands at the back of the saucer. "I wouldn’t jeopardize our chances," he murmured, kissing at the naked skin exposed to the cold between overgrown curls creeping down and out of Nana’s hat. "Ready?"

"Ready."

Mike gave Nana a push. They lurched down the hill a few feet, sank. Nana gripped the saucer and hopped and wiggled it the rest of the way down.

"So what’s in Jamaica?" Levi finally asked. Erwin slid his eyes from Nana’s efforts to Levi, saw him shiver against the night. He stopped himself from reaching and taking him into his arms.

Mike, who didn’t look away from Nana, shrugged just a little. “Sort of like habitat for humanity, sort of an immersion trip. Educational stuff. One of our professors goes down each summer, he takes five students. It’s a whole program.”

"Do you get paid?" 

Mike smiled and looked at Levi. “Nah.”

Levi sniffed. 

Sledding eventually gained traction. Erwin’s nose ran hot against the cold, and he could lick the salt running damp across his top lip. When they weren’t flying down the hill, they were hiking up. When they weren’t moving at all, they were jostling side to side waiting for their turn. It went fast, it went hard. They got bored.

Erwin surprised everyone by throwing the first snowball, but even that was inevitable. As much as he wanted to make Levi pay attention to him, for Levi was cautious and remote — turning Erwin sick with paranoia that he pushed aside every time Levi failed to hold his eyes — but no no, not Levi. Even an imaginary blow, one that would dissolve in a cloud of snow, would only leave the could snap of ice, was too much for Erwin. The cold made Levi’s face draw into extremes of colour and the dark cloud of dull blood behind his eye throbbed ruddy.

Erwin hit Nanaba in the butt with a snowball. They turned, and suddenly they fell into some form of performance art. The outrage, the promise of revenge. The four of them tried to run in the snow, but it dragged at them and made them fall or leap like lame gazelles. Erwin never once felt alone because Levi never once left him to be so. Of course Levi defended him; or picked on Mike by chance. Nanaba had a wiley threatening nature to them that Levi wisely avoided because Nanaba would chase you down and shove ice down the wet collar of your clothes.

Nanaba pinned Erwin to the ground and did just that. When he rolled them over, a shout echoed in the crunch of their body. “Shit,” Erwin swore, gasping immediately in regret, “are you okay?” 

Nanaba blinked widely up at him. “That wasn’t me.”

A more savage sound followed, and Erwin jerked his head to the side to see Levi, flat on the ground, throw himself into the air and onto a kneeling Mike who fell back, arms around Levi to catch him. Then Mike rolled them and pinned Levi down and Erwin stood up and Nana climbed to their feet and they both watched Levi swing a wild fist at Mike’s face, a fist devoid of snow or play.

"Hey, what the fuck," Nana shouted, taking off as best they could. Erwin followed on longer legs. 

Levi sat up, hat and scarf gone, snow covering his hair, melting down his red face. He heaved for breath, steaming air from his mouth. A mouth twisted and open. Erwin could hear the shrill whistle of air pumping in and out of him. 

"Levi," Erwin called, just a feet yards away. Levi’s eyes rolled to him, wide and white.

"What the fuck, Levi," Nana repeated, bunched up in anger, going to Mike who was sitting a little dumbstruck, rubbing his red cheek with a numb hand. 

"Erwin," Levi gasped, face all wrong. Erwin held his hands down and helped Levi to his feet, this time pulling him close like he’d wanted to all along. He brushed the snow from Levi’s hair; it clung in chunks. 

"It’s cool," Mike assured, looking up at the three of them. First to Nana, whom he rubbed at their leg in reassurance, then to Erwin briefly but his gaze settled on Levi. "Sorry, little man."

Erwin guessed at what had happened and busied himself de-icing Levi’s hair like that mattered right now. Levi smacked his lips and stilled his breath. “No, uh, sorry. That was fucked up of me.” And he offered his hand to haul Mike up to his feet.

~~~~

It wasn’t so late coming home that Erwin insisted that they be quiet as to not wake his mom, but even if it had been four in the morning, they couldn’t have possibly been quieter. Levi mute as death and Erwin incapable of asking what he should ask. What a good man would ask. 

"Wait wait wait," his mom shouted, coming down the steps from upstairs that brought her to the landing just by the front door. She had her digital camera. "Keep your stuff on. Don’t track snow in-"

"—mom," Erwin protested. Levi stood still, melting from his hair to his boots, jeans dark and punishingly wet and cold.

"I know you’re cold, but the sooner you smile and look cute, the sooner you can get warm. Erwin. Erwin I barely see you, don’t be so pensive. Smile. That means you too, Levi. Both of you, look like you like each other."

It was that and Levi’s quiet amused snort that finally made Erwin crack into a smile, that made him shake his head. Levi leaned against him awkwardly and - at the last moment, threw up a peace sign.

"You did not," Erwin laughed, the noise disipating at once, sucked into the padding of his coat. Levi shrugged and shucked his wet clothes, right down to his Tshirt and underwear, bare feet stepping on puddles and snow.

"I’ll make hot chocolate," Sarah said, rubber-soled slippers immune to the wetness. She cast them a look over her should when she’d all but gone. 

Erwin tried not to look at Levi, busied himself hanging up their wet things on the wall hook. “Getting comfortable, I see.”

Levi looked down at his pale white feet, the dark unruly hair along his toes that snaked over the top of them and lost itself in his leg hair. “I was cold.” And then he turned and fled upstairs and into the guest room with the snick of a closing door.

~~~

Levi was still cold when he crawled into Erwin’s bed that night. That’s what Erwin asked. “Are you cold?” He scooted over onto the fresh side of his bed and gave Levi the hot spot.

In response, Levi stuck toes like ice against Erwin’s calves. Erwin hissed and threw his leg over Levi, and an arm, and pulled him into his chest. “Wear socks,” he scolded.

"I was," Levi grumbled. "I don’t like sleeping in socks." He wiggled around and found one of Erwin’s socked feet and used his icey little toes to pry it off so he could stick his cold skin against Erwin’s hot foot. "Ew, your feet are sweaty."

Erwin shivered. “No complaining.” He hissed sharply again when Levi stuck his cold hands under his shirt to sear at the hot skin of his belly. “Levi! God, you’re like death.”

Levi buried his face into Erwin’s chest. “No complaining.” Levi flipped his palms over and brought the cold back of his hands to Erwin’s skin. Erwin’s muscles flinched under the touch. He tightened his leg around Levi, seamed them together at the groin roughly. Levi exhaled and clutched fistfuls of Erwin’s shirt. Heat crept between Erwin’s legs unwanted but inevitable. Levi had come to him, crawled in beside him in his bed. If this was slow, then so be it. They couldn’t take steps back, they were knitting together slowly. In the dark, all tangled, Erwin could only find Levi in the hints of chilled skin  sewed in against his own.

"Night," Levi whispered, audibly drowsy. Erwin replied in kind, wide-awake. Levi’s heart felt fast against him, but counting against the digital clock across on the nightstand proved him to have a nice healthy resting heartrate. Erwin would tell him in the morning, he made a mental note to do so. And then Levi would roll his eyes and maybe snuggle in and let Erwin feel him wake up beat by beat.

Sleep came, it went. Levi’s bony elbow dug in here or there, Erwin tossed and rolled them both. “Erwin,” Levi snapped through the muffle of sleep. Erwin readjusted them and hushed Levi, tipped his head down and kissed his temple, blind in the dark. Levi mewled, tipped his face up and clumsily met Erwin in a kiss neither of them really meant to complete. 

They parted, returned, parted again with a wet click. Settled again like an old house. Erwin rubbed his hand up and down Levi’s back, down to rest against the dip at the small of it. He paused on a threshold, fingering the hem of Levi’s shirt. 

Levi rubbed his feet against Erwin’s foot. Erwin slipped his hand under Levi’s shirt and pressed his palm against the soft skin there. Levi hummed, pressed his lips to Erwin’s jaw then left his mouth close to breath out against Erwin’s neck, the air growing stifling.

The dark was safe, timeless. Erwin explored that patch of skin beneath his palm with the gentlest touch he had in him. Fine fur-like hair covered Levi’s back, silky and sweet to pet. Erwin stroked his skin, explored up the valley of his spine, touched like spring sunshine the hull of Levi’s ribcage. Levi moved his feet in a rhythm against Erwin, signaling his awakedness, his allowance.

Testing the water, Erwin let his hand pause too long and earned a disapproving grunt to urge him on. He resumed the light touches. He had touched Levi often, countless times, slept with him, but not like this. Not with their love exposed, their bodies worn-out, heavy. It became natural for Erwin to slowly sweep his hand up to rub from between Levi’s shoulder blades and down. Down to the base of his spine, to where the dip rose, where dimples scooped out and his hips swelled.

Levi sighed after a while, pressed in closer. His cock twitched, pressed beneath Erwin’s belly button.

A great heart stopping stillness filled the room, silence roared, knocked on only by Levi and Erwin’s jamming hearts. 

Erwin, too clever and quick, ran his hand up and down like nothing was different, like the heat in his body didn’t leap up in response. But it did. His lips parted in a breath, and Levi’s mouth felt wet on his neck, moving at a shy crawl. Erwin swept his hand down the length of Levi, over his round firm butt. Not too fast to be rough but he didn’t linger, didn’t squeeze. Levi’s feet stilled, but then he ran his nose up Erwin’s neck and kissed the pulse in his vein.

Erwin pet him, soothed him, went back to that silky hair that vanished under Levi’s waistband. The space between them burned. They throbbed under the covers. Neither spoke because words brought dangers, brought definitions and intentions and this came too naturally to Erwin for him to bear. A little scrape of the nail—

—Levi arched, digging his hardness against Erwin. Erwin tightened his hold on Levi, pushed his own back. Their breathing covered whatever noise Erwin dragging his nails down the length of Levi’s back might make. Did not cover the hitch in Levi’s breath when Erwin cupped Levi’s butt, hand so wide it felt like he could hold all of Levi, God, wasn’t he sweet and plump, sweatpants making the shape so easy to find and feel.

Erwin rubbed and Levi circled his hips in time. When Erwin pushed at the heavy weight of Levi’s cheek, felt the full roundness at the bottom, pressed his fingers to his crack, Levi inhaled and Erwin squeezed and Levi spread his legs in response before he finally broke the silence with an unsteady, humid: “Erwin.”

Erwin opened his eyes to the dark, the dark bright now. “I’m sorry.” His cock was insistent against Levi’s body. 

"I don’t want to have sex," Levi whispered.

Erwin ripped his hands away, made to turn, “sorry,” spilling out of his mouth. Levi caught one aborting hand and brought Erwin back to him, put them back together. 

Levi sat up enough to kiss Erwin’s face, his chin and then his mouth, but the kiss was firmly sealed shut. “I want you to touch me. I like that.” He slunk down in bed again.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t waiting or going forward, it was Levi suspending Erwin in his own game, in this dark-bright where they pressed together and walked fingers on each other’s skin and did nothing about the fires they set.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's come to my attention that the scene between Mike and Levi is confusing.
> 
> It will be clarified later what prompted Levi to essentially punch Mike in the face, as clumsy as it was.
> 
> Also Mike is my babe. Actually everyone is. All my babes.
> 
> Also Levi and Erwin r idiots


	17. The End of an arc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General trigger warnings for discussion of sexual assault, PTSD incidence, discussion of mental illness. stuff like that.

Levi’s phone ringing in the morning woke them. Erwin’s body hadn’t seem to have lost the heat from last night; Levi’s presence beside Erwin in bed and everything of last night came in waves of surreal distortion. 

"Izzy?" Levi greeted, clearing roughness from his voice, body still piled under blankets. Erwin nuzzled down behind him, put his face into the crook of Levi’s neck so he was close enough to eavesdrop on the girlish voice on the other end of the phone. Levi didn’t seem to notice him at all.

"Hey big brother," Izzy said, sounding unsure and weary. "Just wanted to call…say hi…"

"Before seven in the morning?" Levi asked doubtfully, voice gentle. 

"Is it that early?"

"Did you have a nightmare?" Levi prodded. Erwin opened his eyes, lashes brushing against the curve of Levi’s neck. Cold feet made an excellent excuse to escape a lonely plague. He wrapped his arms around Levi and drug him in closer and kissed the back of his neck in consolation of his perceived misfortune while Isabel admitted that yes, she had a nightmare and felt something bad looming on the horizon. Levi stiffened, thankless to Erwin’s attentions.

"No one will hurt you again," Levi promised, curled away from Erwin. "They’re dead or in jail. And we’re careful now. I won’t let us do something so dumb again."

"Not like Farlan lets me out alone anymore," Isabel sighed.

"He better not."

Erwin marveled at the easy lie of it all. Levi couldn’t promise Isabel her safety, or his own or Farlan’s. Farlan couldn’t protect the girl from cosmic catastrophe. Erwin’s own father had tried, as fathers do. To be there, to protect their families, to live on to see their sons grown.

You can’t promise anything.

And look at Levi, conjuring up sweetness for a girl who’s had the veil of peace torn to shreds when he himself saw wrath and murder in his own father who gunned down two police officers.

It occurred to him that Levi, despite being here for a few days, still didn’t know why there was no Mr. Smith, just that he’d died. Maybe after the phone call, Erwin would tell him, and this would connect them, a string of tragedy to tie their pinkies in red.

Erwin hummed to himself, dozed out of the conversation, and kissed the secret nook behind Levi’s earlobe where the pink smell of sleep slept.

Levi jolted, tickled. “Hold on Izzy,” he stammered, rolling over enough to dislodge himself from Erwin and shoot him an angry look. “Go back to sleep,” he ordered, sliding out of bed and tramping out of the room. He closed the door quietly, murmuring an “okay, say that again,” and left Erwin alone.

~~

Sarah, who left for work that morning, had been surprised not to find Levi waiting for her with coffee as he had the previous day. His early rising gave her company over the newspaper she hadn’t experienced since Erwin had morning SAT prep his junior year. When she’d checked the guest room and found Levi’s bed empty and Erwin’s door still closed and filled with the breathing of two boys, she alluded to none of it in the note she left on the coffee pot.

'Eat the rest of the leftovers.'

Levi hadn’t touched the pot when Erwin finally gathered his thoughts and went downstairs, intent on confronting him. He made coffee, fumed over it, breathed in the steam.

Levi came down showered and ready for the day. He froze inside the kitchen, face blank after a moment of apprehension passed over it.

"Good morning, Levi," Erwin said, fingers laced together.

Levi looked away awkwardly. “Morning.” He opened a cabinet for a mug but ended up standing and staring with the weight of Erwin’s gaze on his back. Positioned next to the sturdy structure of his home, Erwin thought Levi looked like a child. That thought broke caution.

"What did I do this morning to upset you?"

Levi sighed a little, got a mug with a limp hand. “Nothing.”

"Levi," Erwin frowned, frustration battling with concern. "You came to me last night-"

"-I know," Levi snapped, looking into the emptiness of his mug. "I know I did."

Erwin licked his dry lips, air thick in his throat till it strangled him and he had to speak. “I took advantage of-“

"-Don’t!" Levi spun to him, "don’t say that to me." The fine shape of his nostrils flared with outrage. "You did not."

Erwin smacked his hand onto the table. “That’s how I feel. You ran off from me this morning.”

Levi’s righteous outrage darted away from his eyes. He pulled his shoulders in. “You were kissing me. I was on the phone.”

Erwin knew what that really meant. “Last night was,” he licked his lips again, stalling himself, just a moment, “a mistake.”

Levi crossed his arms, fingers hooked into the handle of the mug, letting it dangle. It could fall so easily. “I’m sorry. I…I shouldn’t have, it was dumb.”

"Why?" Erwin pressed, getting up from his seat and crossing to Levi. "Why did you come to me if you knew it was wrong? When you told me that we had to wait?"

Levi looked up through his lashes, brows humbled. “I was weak.”

That just made Erwin love him more. “It’s okay to be weak around me.” Erwin could be his strength.

"No," Levi said firmly, lifting his chin. "It’s not. I’m sorry that happened, I know how you feel about me," as if he did not feel the same, as if Levi could shove it away, "it won’t happen again." His voice had gained a fresh firmness, but his eyes couldn’t meet Erwin’s, starring off at something haunting behind him.

Levi moved around Erwin and got a cup of coffee.

"You wanted me to touch you last night," Erwin confirmed, following him with his eyes. "That wasn’t just me, right?" Even though Levi had asked for it in the end ,and had put those kitten soft kisses on his neck…

"I would never," Levi said, full of fire that licked up from a deep agony cut upon his soul, "make you into that kind of man, Erwin. For as long as I live, I won’t let you become that kind of man." He blinked, eyes shining. The violence of the promise said too much. "I needed you. You made me feel better. But it’s the wrong time." He crossed his arms across his chest, hugged and held the corners of his bony elbows. "Tell me you understand."

In the end, Erwin did, or at least convinced himself he did just the sake of preservation. “Yes. I do.” And so he renewed his promise to Levi. “I’ll wait; you’ll get through this.”

Levi twitched out a smile. It filled Erwin with the horror of disbelief.

~~

Erwin took Levi home. They filled the car with anything but the problems at hand. Levi did not want to talk of them. He buttoned up his coat and put on a face to sit in the car beside Erwin. They talked of school. Of their friends. They talked of 90s TV shows and wove complex, ridiculous, time bending masterpieces on what they thought would make an adequate Space Jam 2.

"Could we please stop at the store so I can by milk? I want to make the hot chocolate your mom gave me," Levi said after handing Erwin forty dollars cash to get himself a full tank of gas. There was no turning Levi down.

"You’re sure you’ll be okay by yourself for New Years?" Erwin asked once he was in Levi’s apartment again. It wasn’t dingy, not really, but it wasn’t a warm home. Not to Erwin. Not to Levi who looked so small inside it. At least the news crews had gone. At least they’d never caught the blood on Erwin’s family’s name too. A pair of roommates like that, they were calamity together.

"Yes," Levi promised. "I don’t want to party — and I won’t hold you back from enjoying yourself," he added firmly.

Erwin pressed his lips together in a pause of protested. “You wouldn’t,” he insisted.

Levi rolled his eyes. “I’m tired, Erwin. I’m a party-pooper. You need to see your other friends.”

For not being together, Erwin thought with uncaused bitterness, we sure do act like we are. (And a togetherness on the verge of breaking at that.)

"I really liked having you home with me. My mom likes you a lot too. You’re always welcome in my home. You know that, right?" He reached with a slow open palm into Levi’s space to touch his fingers to Levi’s shoulder. Levi didn’t resist, so Erwin clasped at him warmly. He spared Levi his butchered answer by pressing onward. "We’ll be here the day of the trial’s end. Then it’ll all be over, and we’ll be back at school."

"Yeah," Levi said into the enormous gulf between them.

Erwin swallowed. “You’ll be okay here alone?”

"Yes," Levi said, stiffening under his hand, eyes narrowing. "yes, Erwin, I’ll be okay without your babying."

Erwin blew out a disappointed breath from his nose and withdrew his touch to fist his hands into his coat pockets. “Well okay then.”

Levi’s mouth opened, he sighed, he looked away and back, shoulders stooped and sloped. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry Erwin, I didn’t mean it. I’m tired. I’m just—”

"—You’re going through a lot. I know." He pushed a hand through his hair. "I’m not babying you. I’m watching out for you."

"Don’t pity me."

"I’m being your friend."

Levi’s eyes flashed only briefly with accusation - you’re being more than a friend - but it was fast and fleeting. He didn’t act on it, though Erwin saw something hidden and dark in him all the same. Levi reached for Erwin and Erwin let his hands be coaxed from their tense quarters in his pockets and held in Levi’s much smaller hands. “You’re a wonderful friend. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

He kissed Erwin’s knuckles silent and solemn and squeezed Erwin’s hands. “I look forward to seeing you and your mom again. Tell her thanks a million from me when you get home. I’ll be sending a card.”

Erwin shook his head minutely. “Yeah, yeah, Levi. Just come here before we fight anymore.”

Despite a grunt of offense, Levi stepped in and let Erwin embrace him as he does. Erwin closed his arms around Levi cautiously, feeling out every hitch and resistance in him, not crushing him close. Levi let his head drop against Erwin’s chest; Erwin heard Levi inhale him. This closeness didn’t stir heat in Erwin but instead a rising tempest of foreboding. Levi eventually wiggled away, took a step back.

"Erwin?" he prodded cautiously for attention, though their eyes were locked.

"Hmm?"

Levi stared at him with an endangered vulnerability Erwin understood instantly.

"You too, Levi."

~~

Farlan Church had a plaster over his nose, the tail end of bruising and swelling still stretched across his face. He was tall and thin. He might have been charming if not for a grayness leeching out of him. But he extended his hand to Erwin and his mom immediately and smiled at them and thanked them for their support and for taking care of Levi.

Isabel, who had seen them from far off in their approach to the courthouse, broke into a split grin. “Oh hey~ Man, you’re huge when you’re not asleep. Hi Mrs. Smith.” She greeted like she belonged to them, and perhaps that was why Isabel was so easy to love.

Erwin was struck by her physical similarity to Petra.

Sarah, who had heard of these two from Levi in those morning hours over coffee, took each introduction stride and hugged them both. They sank into her soft firm body hungrily, even if she smelled foreign, it was the perfume of unconditional love.

Levi rested his cheek on Sarah’s shoulder when she hugged him and said something soft and secret in her ear that made her visibly squeeze him harder.

Erwin did not plan touch him, but Levi, after nearly two weeks of separation, gravitated into his space in a silent quest for Erwin’s affection. In the end, Erwin put a guiding hand on the small of Levi’s back and walked him into the courthouse, past the held-at-bay news crews and into the courthouse. The bulky federal columns and white facade menaced them.

~~

“I went out for a walk to get fresh air and consult with my Lord. I thought the woods would be peaceful, cleansing. I crossed paths with the trio and the two boys looked sickly.

“From the drugs?”

“Yes, I suppose. They didn’t seem very together. And the young girl looked cold. I thought they were lost at first.”

“They looked lost, so that’s why you invited them back to the cabin.”

“Yes. We didn’t have a car, but we at least had a stove and hot drinks.”

“You were concerned for their well being?”

“Yes.”

“And you asked them, without pressure, if they’d like to stop by and get warmed up?”

“Yes. I offered.”

“Did you threaten them at this time?”

“No. Of course not. I’m not even sure how I could have.”

“Did you ever consider the possibility that Mr. Thicke and Mr. Lobov would try to take advantage of these kids?”

“No. I knew they were troubled men, but I had no clue that they had fallen so deeply into evils.”

“So you did not in any way knowingly endanger anyone? You had no inclination as to the scene that would unfold? “

“No.”

“Did you know Mr. Lobov had a shotgun at the cabin?”

“No.”

“Did you know there were three tapes of child pornography in the cabin?”

“Of course not!”

“When Mr. Lobov and Mr. Thicke began to harass Ms. Magnolia, what did you do?”

“I told them to stop.”

“Did you physically intervene?”

“No. Mr Church got up between Mr. Thicke and Ms Magnolia and then Mr. Thicke hit him.”

“And then what happened?”

“It all broke out into chaos. Ms. Magnolia started crying, and the two boys well, as we know, were under a heavy psychedelic drug influence. Mr. Ackerman didn’t respond at first rationally, at least to me it didn’t seem as such. He tried to clean the blood off Mr. Church’s face rather than respond with fear. And I was tied up with Thicke, trying to get him to settle down when Lobov returned with a shotgun.”

“Were you scared, Mr. Nicholas?”

“Yes. I was. I lost confidence in my ability to save anyone.”

“Did you try to talk Mr. Lobov down?”

“Yes. Desperately. I didn’t want anyone hurt, least of all children.”

“But Mr. Lobov didn’t listen. And neither did Mr. Thicke, correct? In fact, they leveled an ultimatum to the entire room, you included, that they would do as they  
pleased or they would shoot.”

“Yes.”

“Did you feel that you yourself were now being held captive in the situation against your will?”

“Yes.”

“Were you scared for your own life in addition to the lives of Ms. Magnolia, Mr Church and Mr. Ackerman, correct?

“Yes.”

“What happened next?”

“Mr. Ackerman and Mr. Church put themselves bodily between Ms. Magnolia and Mr. Thicke and Lobov. Then Mr. Ackerma said if they were so set on raping someone, it should be him.”

“Did he say those words exactly?”

“….No. Not exactly. It was phrased as he’d be “more fun.”

“Did you find the situation fun or pleasurable in any way, Mr. Nicholas?”

“Of course not!”

“When Mr. Thicke and Mr. Lobov accepted this, they then ordered Mr. Ackerman to strip and crawl over to them to have this fun, did you try to intervene?”

“I…I was praying. I was praying it would stop.”

“Did it stop?”

“No.”

“Did you undo your pants with the intent of participating?

“No.”

“Did you attempt to stop Mr. Thicke or Mr. Lobov from orally raping Mr. Ackerman?”

Sarah inhaled sharp and audible beside Erwin, and her hand that had been holding his firmly now squeezed like a spasm of death so that her nails cut his skin. Erwin did not feel it. He felt more that the world itself had smacked him. From his seat, he could only see a portion of Levi, the back curl of his tender ear. Erwin wished he could fly out of his own skin to save himself from the bile that heaved inside of him, the shaking sickened rage. The grief.

Sarah’s plum lips crumpled together and her chin dimpled as she frowned crushingly, tears rolling down her face. “Levi, no,” she whispered. Erwin heard her; her words cleared his head. He knew, whether he wanted it or not, that his mother and Levi shared an awful kinship. That, in time, his mother would appear and take Levi to her and tell her why and how Erwin’s father had died. Of the man who came into their home with evil and hate in him like a mad hunger, a rabid thing, and killed her husband so that his body went rolling down the stairs. Erwin could only remember the wailing. But his mother was a woman of creation and could unbecome a man and put him down.

His mother would tell Levi this, and she would absolve him. She could not, however, take away the tragedy and pain.

“I tried. I begged them to reconsider. I prayed that the Lord would save that boy from it, that those men would stop their evilness.”

“And why did you not physically intervene?”

“Mr. Lobov had the shotgun cocked and up while Mr. Thicke…participated. Lobov said if anyone moved, he’d shoot. I felt frozen. If I did anything, I or any of those kids could have been killed.”

“Do you believe any attempt to stop what was happening would have resulted in more violence, possibly the death of the victims?”

“Yes. I do. Thicke and Lobov were wild men, in the end. They would have killed those children. I would give anything to undo what happened and save those children from that misery. As it is, I must repent for my involvement. I was prideful in thinking that I could redeem those sinners souls, but that’s my job. I’m sorry. - …. - I’m so sorry.”

~~

During the deliberation which took a little over an hour, Levi, Farlan and Isabel did not unlock themselves from each other. Levi did not turn his head to the Smith’s, and that kept them away.

They had no appetite, but a weary adrenaline made them sick. Erwin held his mother’s arm in his own and walked them through the people and the cold to get coffee and sandwiches that they ate in gripped silence.

~~

“On the charge of possession of child pornography, we find the defendant not guilty. On the charge of accessory to kidnapping, we find the defendant not guilty. On the charge of accessory to rape, we find the defendant not guilty.”

Erwin would forever remember how Levi stood up bolt straight, as if shocked out of his seat, and how Isabel and Farlan had pulled him down between them. How terribly straight Levi had stood and how crippled low he bowed his head.

~~

Erwin moved back into his and Levi’s dorm at the earliest possible hour, consulting with Levi on when he’d be getting there so that Erwin could guarantee nothing be amiss. He checked the outside of their door on thirty minute intervals and removed, over a three hour period, two damning signs of “murderer” pasted up in hate.

"Is it supposed to be ironic that Grayhouse busses smell like dog fart?" Levi asked upon entering the room, red-cheeked from cold, duffel over both shoulders. He still hadn’t gotten his hair cut, it looked, but for the most part it hid under a beanie.

"We’re living in an age of post-irony, haven’t you heard?" Erwin replied easily, hopping out of his desk chair and going to assist. The moment transcended reality, stained in this untainted pure room of their joy and careless carefree memories. Everywhere Erwin looked, he had a good memory of them together.

Levi smiled at him. “No, I haven’t heard. Did you read that in the Times or on Buzzfeed?”

"Jezebel."

"That changes everything."

~~

They chattered with renewed spirit as Levi unpacked. Hanji and Petra came round together, decked in new clothes from the long break, in a new caution.

Levi looked at their hesitations, frowned crookedly. “You guys look like I killed someone,” he tsked disapprovingly, irreverent.

It shocked them until Hanji snorted on a horrified hysterical laugh that made snot come out of their nose and then they all descended into unreality. Erwin was sure, as Levi swept the issue aside, demanded Petra talk about her awful mother-in-law and insisted that Hanji let him borrow their new blazer sometime, that the audience would applaud, the lights would fall and the curtain close so they could all walk away.

~~

Something in Levi had been killed and began to rot.

~~

Petra looked up from her homework. Levi kept his head down, lips moving subtly as he read his textbook. She looked down, highlighted something arbitrarily. Bit her  
lip, looked up again at him.

"What?" Levi intoned.

Erwin peeked over from his own book from across the room.

"I’m so bored," she sighed, pushing her book away in disgust. "I don’t want to read about research methods anymore."

Levi’s nose crinkled sympathetically. “Ew. Sucks,” he agreed in a recycled cadence of acknowledgement and dismissal before he passed his eyes listlessly over the room and returned to reading.

Petra stared at him before she whipped her head straightforward to lock eyes with Erwin. Then she sat back against the wall, drained, and pulled out her phone.

'is he always like this' the text Erwin got from her read.

'more or less'

Levi looked up and acknowledged it. His mouth thinned, and guilt curdled in Erwin. He pretended to be doing something else on his phone at the exact same time as Petra pulled up Facebook and made a comment about someone’s Christmas family photo.

"Here," Levi said, reaching across the bed for his laptop. "We’ll take breaks. I can’t afford to fuck off completely, but I can take breaks."

"Okay," Petra agreed, lightening up considerably. "What kind of breaks."

Levi hummed exaggeratedly and googled rapidly. “Count down of greatest hits from the 90s? Two songs between twenty minute breaks.”

"Ooh, deal," she agreed with a little too much enthusiasm.

Erwin smiled encouragingly at Levi when Levi looked his way.

~~

The cold bit into even the warmest wool coat.

"I don’t see why the school let him back in. Like, shouldn’t he be in juvie or something? What if he snaps?"

"You’re a fucking moron. It was self-defense and he wouldn’t go to juvie. How’d you get into college, shit, man.”

~~

The room was dark when Erwin came into it on a Thursday night after too many hours at the library. They weren’t even a month into school and already Erwin’s lab reports were bogging him down. Levi was up, on his phone in bed, earbuds visible in the blue light.

"Hey," Levi greeted a little sleepily. At least Erwin always got a hello from him, something many people couldn’t say anymore. He ran a hand through Levi’s hair as he moved passed him to his desk to turn on his lamp rather than endure fluorescents. "Get all your work done?"

"More or less," Erwin sighed. He put paste on his toothbrush and left to do a cursory job of hygiene before he could sleep. At least in withdrawing from pretty much his entire social life, Levi used his free time to burn through his classwork.

He returned, changed hastily, turned off his lamp and slipped into bed. He breathed in and out. “Levi?”

Grunt.

"Did you wash my sheets?"

"Yeah."

Erwin closed his eyes.

"Did you do all my laundry?"

"Yep. It was bothering me. I put it all away, don’t worry."

That wasn’t what worried Erwin. Levi’s free time also let him transcend order and cleanliness.

"Did you have a meeting with the counselor today?"

"Oh. No," he responded wistfully. "It got rescheduled to next week."

~~

Levi was in class, so Erwin left the door cracked. Hanji pushed their way in, looked around, closed it and insinuated themselves beside Erwin in his bed.

"Hello to you too, Hanji," he greeted. Hanji adjusted their glasses, the moment grim and conspiratorial.

"Why did Levi come back to school?" they asked, anger simmering. It was neither a surprising question nor what Erwin expected.

"Normalcy?"

"He shouldn’t be here. Not right now." Hanji levelled a look on him. "How can you let him do this?"

"Me?"

"Yes. You. You Erwin, you’re the only one who he talks to. Who he told," Hanji shouted, something snapping. They could smell the rotting dead thing that Erwin tried  
to ignore. "I know Levi loves us, me and Petra. I know he does. But you’re —you’re the only one who can do anything. Why aren’t you doing anything?"

"Because he told me he didn’t want to talk about it," which was the excuse he hung onto.

Hanji laughed in his face. “You’re an idiot. You’re both fucking idiots.”

Erwin had told no one anything about Levi at home. They knew Levi had spent Christmas with him, but Erwin coveted it all too much to share. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted finally. “I don’t, Hanji. I can’t make him better.”

Hanji pushed their glasses on top of their head and pressed the heel of their palms into their eyes. “I’m so worried for him.”

~~

"Mom. You have to call Levi. He isn’t okay. Please, talk to him."

~~

Erwin texted his mom when he and Levi were walking back from dinner. Petra and Hanji had gone their separate ways. He made up an excuse halfway home that he needed to go to the library.

"You’re always there," Levi complained. "Don’t stress too much over homework." He looked genuinely concerned for Erwin, seeing him as overworked, when in fact, Erwin used the library and his textbooks as trenches of defense against the misery he saw in Levi.

He bit his tongue and smiled. “Thanks. I won’t. I plan to get as much done tonight so I can have fun this weekend.”

He left Levi and prayed for his mom to guide him.

Whatever happened took time, either to talk or to consider, but Erwin really had finished all his homework by the time Levi sent out a group text.

’80s party at Hull House. I’m going.’

Erwin hurried home, hope filling him up better than any drug or drink could. It made the cold melt from him, and he unlocked his door to walk into the smell of Levi freshly showered, perfumed and styling his hair. Erwin had never been so happy to smell hairspray, forget carbon footprints.

"Hey, big guy," Levi greeted, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of their full-length mirror. He had on hot pants and some heinous white blazer with shoulderpads to kill a man. Erwin had no clue what bin Levi must have found that in, but even if it smelled like mothballs, Erwin wanted to bury his face into it in thanks.

“You’re looking fancy,” Erwin grinned, sitting down beside him, entranced by Levi’s methods of making his hair ten times bigger than it naturally was. He lost himself in the costume Levi painted on, the clothes, the makeup, the smile he wore. Levi dressed him up in the uniform of a hearthrob, more or less unkempt business casual. Levi touched Erwin’s chest and neck and wrists and smiled at him.

~~

It became clear that Levi had moved beyond the people around him. An hour into socializing, Erwin realized that Levi had become nothing more than a manikin. But he held onto the illusion. Levi danced roughly, like he was fighting for something in the one and three upswing beats. He clutched backwards for Erwin’s body whenever he forgot that he was safe.

As the tallest, Erwin should have been paying more attention to the world around him. But he was distracted, and it was Levi who noticed Petra’s absence from their circle, her fetching another beer taking years too long. So Levi forced himself to force his way through the thick crowd of people throbbing to the music.

What he saw was Petra pinned against the wall by a guy twice her size, her wrists trapped, her body twisting in fear. So Levi pulled the guy, and the guy shoved, and Levi threw a hit and the guy knocked Levi down and the crowd separated and cheered and Erwin moved to slow and the guy put his weight on Levi’s chest.

It was Levi’s scream that broke the scene, that animal fear tearing through him without pretense. The same distress that Levi had screamed when Mike had gotten too close and heavy on top of him and play had turned to nightmare. Levi let out that noise now.

"Get the fuck off of him," Erwin roared, and he was not the only one. He and another student ripped the guy off Levi with such force that he went stumbling and falling into the crowd. The DJ cut the music.

Levi hiccupped on escalating sobs, still stunned and curled on the ground in a ring of onlookers.

"Levi, Levi," Erwin chanted, "it’s okay, let’s go let’s get out of here." He reached for Levi’s hands and the touch of him made Levi jerk and tremble.

"I c-can’t. I c-can’t. Erwin. I can’t," he babbled, all the sense of a broken child to him.

People stepped forward and surrounde. Levi’s eyes rolled to them deliriously, and Erwin tried to close in around him without suffocating him further.

“Give him space,” Petra shouted, intervening physically between Levi and the curious.

"Everyone, get out," one of the students around them bellowed. The basement was mostly quiet except for a kind of static murmur. "The parties over. Securities on  
their way. Get out." Levi’s hysterical breathing, stifled and raw behind his desperately clamped mouth, vibrated beneath everything.

People who hadn’t already left immediately when the fight broke out trailed out, lagged by concern and curiosity. The incident spread like fire over yik-yak and  
twitter.

Security assessed the situation, namely Levi, who in his current state intimidated less than a child. It barely mattered, at the moment, that he’d thrown the first punch and started it all. Petra and Erwin and Hanji were feral in their protectiveness, and despite the risk of being caught for underaged drinking, the guys from the Frisbee team, Erd, Gunther and Olou, stayed behind to defend Levi and offer moral support by their mere presence.

The guy who had mishandled Petra, Aaron Flagon, explained around a split lip: “Fights happen. I hit him back, I wasn’t thinking either. But look at him, that’s Levi. I know him. You know what happened to him – yeah, you must. Everyone does. Write it down right now that I don’t want to press charges, I don’t want him in trouble. Even if my mom and dad start calling the school, I don’t want anything bad to happen to that kid because of this. Someone get him some fucking help.”

Levi’s teeth chattered. The basement turned into an interrogation room with the four officers going through a procedural interrogation. Hanji, Petra and Erwin could barely focus on their own questions, attention sliding back to Levi again and again. Levi was remote, glazed. He answered mechanically, habitual sarcasm to his words without inflection, face twitching with unvoiced thoughts, eyes ceaseless in their roving, unable to sit on any one thing too long less he get caught and trapped in some whirlpool.

Two officers escorted them back to their dorm, gave them a warning wrapped in a good night. Levi stood still in the center of their room, the world spinning around him. Erwin leaned against the door, heart sick, eyes red with exhaustion.

Levi began to laugh, loud and terrible. It exploded and cast collateral about the room, boomed and banged against white bricks and plaster. Then – Levi’s eyes fell on Erwin and the sound sucked out of him. Erwin knew before it came that he had done this, somehow. He had tried to drag Levi out and into a world he couldn’t handle.

"You think you’re mom can call me and deus ex machina me out of my own misery?” He growled. “Seriously?”

Erwin shook his head slowly. “I just wanted you to not feel alone. To feel better.”

“You think I haven’t been trying to do that myself? I don’t want to be like this, Erwin. This isn’t fucking fun for me. I wanna be like how I should be.” He pulled at his falling-flat hair. “I can’t even – god, I can’t look around me as if it’s normal or that I’m normal anymore. Something is wrong, Erwin. I feel like madness and crazy.” He pulled the strands taught. “I feel so fucking crazy, not sad, crazy. And it’s not fair, it’s not fair. I don’t want this, I didn’t want this.” He threw back his head, throat working, expelling a ragged noise. “God. God. I can’t even think about what I did because I was so high out of my fucking mind. Fuck the rape, that’s a terror too many of us know. That makes me a survivor. But I killed. I killed two men. Even if they were evil, I did something I can’t find it in myself to reconcile with.” He spoke to the space beyond the ceiling.

“I didn’t even have the choice, I don’t remember thinking it. I don’t remember the trigger, only how loud it was and how wet the room smelled after. I don’t even feel like,” his voice broke but he barreled on, filled with the confession, “I don’t feel like I had a choice. And I’m scared of myself for it. I don’t know what I really am, what I’m capable of doing. It’s all I can think about. I feel unnatural. I don’t know who I am anymore, Erwin.”

Levi let go of his hair, hands suspended over nothing before he covered his face. “I can’t touch what was, what everything is. I don’t feel like I have a right to anything anymore.” He dragged his hands down, nails scraping faint red marks.

Levi heaved on his breaths, words flung out of him, sweat shining on his pale drawn face where red blotched. “To life,” Levi whispered between breaths. “To normalcy or happiness. My friends. To you. God, to you. If I had known it would be like this, I would have never gone with you. I want to unlove you because it makes me sick to see you look at me and see me this way. You want so desperately for there to be good in this world, and I feel so evil, I see only evil.”

Erwin had no words for Levi’s confession of his madness, but he could not bear to hear him defame himself like this. To think of himself in those terms, put on the same plane as those men, see his actions as that. “You are not evil. You aren’t bad or wrong. You killed evil, Levi, why can’t you see that? Why can’t you mourn for yourself instead of hating yourself?” He stepped forward and reached out to touch Levi without thought and arrested his movements before the motion completed.  
Levi grabbed him.

“Because I’m not here!” Levi cried, gripping at Erwin’s wrists. “I feel split. Who I was and who I am and what I am capable of doing. You look to me and I’m not even there because I’m not what anyone knew me as. Look what I did tonight! Petra said she was dancing with him.”

“Levi!” Erwin shouted. “You’re sick, you’re suffering. You need help, but you are still you. And that person never has been and never will be evil. You are so good, Levi,” he quieted, desperate. “You love and are loved. I promise you. If I’m good, and I see good in you, shouldn’t that be enough?”

Levi shook in his hands and sucked on air, hot and sick. He cried in a whimper that sounded gagged and stuffed in his throat. “I can’t rely on you to atone for me.”

“I’m not,” Erwin begged him to understand. “Levi, I’m not. I just want you to see. I want you to get better. You’ve suffered so much; don’t suffer this.” Levi let Erwin push forward to wipe at Levi’s falling tears until his hands became slick with them and only smeared the wetness around his cheeks. Levi’s lips trembled but he did not speak. Erwin pet his hair and stared at him for a revelation, a revolution. Nothing. Erwin hadn’t inspired him at all. He gripped at Levi’s bangs, held the thick dark strands in his fists until his knuckles turned white and Erwin choked this part of Levi in a rage that fell slowly to impotency.

“I’m leaving,” Levi finally said.

Erwin sighed with relief, nodded. “Take a leave of absence, get into therapy. Maybe a treatment facility? You could stay with—“

“No,” Levi shook his head and clutched at Erwin’s hands, stilled their trembling. “America.”

“What?”

“I’m leaving America.”

Erwin smiled in his confusion, teeth white and dry. “What do you mean that you’re leaving America?”

Levi breathed steadily, rocking slightly. “I have relatives in France. Distant, but there. They lost track of me after my mother died. The trial brought me back to their attention. We’ve been in contact. I talked to them about moving there.”

“When? When have you done any of this? France? Levi, you’re in French 101.” Erwin didn’t realize he was yelling.

“I’m fluent, Erwin,” Levi sighed, closing his eyes against Erwin’s face. “My parents were French citizens when they had me in America.” He smiled distantly. “I took 101 for an easy A.”

Erwin pulled away, betrayed. He shook his head. “No. I. Why are you telling me this now? When were you going to tell me? Or any of us? What the fuck, Levi.”

Levi let his arms hand limply at his sides and took the anger in stride. “I hadn’t decided yet, it didn’t seem worth mentioning. But after tonight, I can’t be at this school anymore. I can’t be in this country where my mother has died and my father has killed and I have been hurt again and again,” he said. “And Bordeaux is beautiful.” He brightened and looked to Erwin. “I’ll send pictures and write. You always wanted to go to Denmark and the Alps, it wouldn’t be hard to visit me at all. I’d even go to Paris if you really wanted to even though it smells like shit there.”

In his fanciful future imaginings, Levi had painted Erwin into the landscape.

Erwin stared at him. “No,” he said softly. “No, Levi.”

Levi’s face flickered. “No, what?”

“Levi.” Erwin looked at him. “Leave if it makes you better but I don’t see myself visiting you.”

Knicks and chinks flinched open in Levi’s expression. “You don’t?” he asked in disbelief.

The moment was too raw for them both, but Levi was leaving. Erwin knew he absolutely was, and some part of him knew this was for the best too. But that didn’t change how it would affect him. “I can’t do that because if I do, I’ll be waiting for you. I can’t wait for you. I won’t.”

“But you said you would,” Levi insisted quietly. “You said you’d wait for me. You promised me.” And then he cracked in earnest, frowning furiously through his  
tears. “You said.”

“You were supposed to stay here, where I could actually have you. Not run away to France!”

Levi fisted his hands. “You said you loved me.”

Erwin grabbed him too tight and listened to Levi’s violent gasp. Erwin let go again and stepped away, turning in his dismay, clutching at his hair and groaning aloud. “I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry Levi. I do love you, and I’m sorry. I love you and I want to see you well. I will never hold you back. But I won’t hang onto you like that.”

Erwin looked to him to understand, but a door had slammed between them.

“No,” Levi said slowly, rubbing his arms where Erwin’s bruising grip lingered. “No, that – I wouldn’t make you. You’re right. You’re right. I don’t want you to waste your time on something that,” he took a deep steadying breath, “we’re young. This is stupid.” Levi dropped his head. “I’m tired. I feel sick.”

“You wore yourself out,” he agreed, letting him go. He sighed, “fuck,” and rubbed his own face, turning away. “Fuck, Levi. Fuck.”

Levi took his towel off the hook on their door and stripped methodically while Erwin pressed a hand over his eyes to blind himself to the defeat of it all. Levi had changed utterly. Loving him was to love someone very alive and very close to death. Who was Erwin to reckon with the godliness of that. Erwin was a boy standing before something sublime and tragic.

Erwin laid down to sleep.

~~

Levi left and took the Spring with him.


End file.
